There's a part of me, as a re-located New Yorker, that would love to see the Twin Towers rise again over the Manhattan skyline. When my family first came to the U.S. we lived in Manhattan; the towers were then beginning to rise, and in my lifetime those two buildings became part of the essential definition of 'New York'.

Some people say that rebuilding the World Trade Center towers would only throw salt in the wounds of those who lost friends and family on 9/11; others contend our country would be 'asking' for another terrorist attack by doing so. I disagree on both counts.

An advocacy group called Team Twin Towers proposes setting aside the Studio Daniel Liebeskind "Freedom Tower" design for the new WTC, instead rebuilding the site as it was. From the Team Twin Towers website:

Building anything shorter, or smaller than the Twin Towers is tantamount to kneeling to terrorism. No terrorist organization has the right to dictate building heights or what a skyline should look like and how ideals, hopes, and dreams should be compromised. Whatever is built at the WTC site will send a message around the world. What message do we want that to be? The world is watching how we choose to move forward.

Team Twin Towers also does include a proposed memorial to those lost on 9/11 in their design. You can sign their online petition at http://www.ipetitions.com/campaigns/rebuildtwintowers/.

What do you think? Should we rebuild the Towers, or move forward with the new SDL Freedom Tower design?

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