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Letter to The New York Times
Published September 23, 2001

September 14, 2001

Dear Editor:

Once the debris has been cleared away from the land on which the World Trade Center once stood, the question of what to do with the site will remain.  Some people have suggested that the wreckage should remain as a memorial, or that the land should be turned into a park.  Some have suggested that it should be redeveloped but that it would be foolhardy to build such tall buildings again.

What would the terrorists who engineered this catastrophe want us to do?  Wouldn’t they want us to be afraid, to timidly construct a handful of anonymous office buildings, or better yet, to enshrine our darkest day in a depressing memorial?

I believe that the idea of a memorial does have merit.  But I think that the most appropriate memorial to the people who perished on September 11, 2001 would be two gleaming silver towers, each 107 stories tall, which would come to symbolize America’s strength and our unwillingness to accept defeat.

We will ultimately track down and punish those who perpetrated this crime, but we will not truly have won until the towers rise again.

Sincerely,

Willis B. Boyce
122 Nassau Street (two blocks from ground zero)
2^nd Floor
New York, NY 10038
212-791-3091