Date: July 24, 2005 3:44:39 AM PDT
Subject: Telling the (fake) story of 9/11-daily news
Glad to hear that Rockefeller flunkie Gretchen Dykstra, corporations
(Bechtel, Haliburton, Exxon, Giuliani Partners?) and fat cat doners will be
working together to con Americans out of $500 million to tell the (fake)
story of what happened on 9/11. Note that disabled vets and all First
Amendment-protected vendors are banned from the area and that Governor
Pataki has said he will allow no art critical of the Bush administration to
be shown there. They hate us for our freedoms?
NY Daily News 7/23/05
an you spare
a dime - or $500M?
Huge WTC fund drive
By DOUGLAS FEIDEN
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
A 6-ton carbonized mass of crushed concrete, pulverized steel and melted
furniture that was found among rubble at Ground Zero is in JFK's Hangar 17.
Artist's rendition World Trade Center memorial and surrounding complex,
which the city is trying to build in part through a $500 million
fund-raising campaign.
Gretchen Dykstra, president of the World Trade Center Memorial foundation,
stands at spot on Liberty St. overlooking Ground Zero.
Reach for your wallets and tell your kids to crack open their piggy banks:
The $500 million campaign to build a world-class memorial at Ground Zero has
begun.
Students and stockbrokers, firefighters and financiers, baseball fans and
business barons will all be asked to pony up in one of the greatest
fund-raising challenges in New York City history.
The goal: during the next four years, raise $300 million from corporations
and fat-cat donors and $200 million from the general public for the World
Trade Center memorial and museum.
By reaching out to working people as well as the megarich, organizers are
mounting a grass-roots appeal that hasn't been seen since 1885 - when city
schoolchildren gave their nickels and dimes to pay for the pedestal for the
Statue of Liberty.
"The task is to tap into that classic, uniquely American vein of generosity
to tell the story of 9/11 - the story of those who died, those who helped
and those who cared," said Gretchen Dykstra, president of the World Trade
Center Memorial Foundation.
Moneymaking plans include an effort to get the biggest Wall Street companies
to donate a portion of their trading profits on Sept. 11, 2006, the
five-year commemoration of the attacks, the Daily News has learned.
"We want to honor, remember and respect all the innocent people we lost, and
we need to be directly involved in the memorial," said Marc Lackritz,
president of the Securities Industry Association, whose member companies
lost 749 employees on 9/11. "It's under discussion."
A possible marketing partnership with Major League Baseball also is being
explored, insiders say.
Pegged to the World Series, it would get the foundation's Web site -
www.wtcmemorialfoundation.org - splashed across national TV and build on a
$1 million gift that MLB and the Baseball Players Association gave the
memorial last year.
The National Football League and other professional sports leagues also have
held preliminary talks about promotional alliances.
"Fund-raising opportunities are endless at sporting events," said NYC & Co.
Chairman Jonathan Tisch, who is raising cash for the memorial. He ought to
know - his family owns 50% of the New York Giants.
"I don't know if we'd pass the hat, but revenues could be derived on
everything from receptacles for loose change to sales at vending stands,"
Tisch added.
The streetcorner bell-ringers of the Salvation Army also will be asked to
solicit funds on future anniversaries of 9/11, according to one initiative.
And the proud Internet geeks at EchoDitto Inc., who ran Howard Dean's hugely
successful online fund-raising campaign in 2004, will be Web masters for the
memorial. Planners hope to collect $100 million in cyberspace, based on an
average gift of $100 from a projected 1 million donors.
"The Dean campaign showed that citizens could organize and raise significant
small-dollar contributions online," said Nicco Mele, CEO of EchoDitto.
"But the online response to the tsunami - $1 billion in 30 days - showed how
the Internet can spur enormous charitable giving globally, and that's the
model for the memorial."
In addition, dozens of potentially lucrative marketing tie-ins are being
sought - with NASCAR, the Country Music Association Awards, unions in both
the public and private sector and the 165,000 volunteer firefighters in New
York, organizers say.
Also on the wish list: the sale of Lance Armstrong-style bracelets -
forget-me-nots that would be funded by Avon or its foundation - with
proceeds donated to the memorial.
"Some 500,000 people volunteered their time after 9/11, and they all made
America proud," Dykstra said. "The challenge now is how to tap into that
spirit."
At stake is Reflecting Absence, the World Trade Center Memorial to the
nearly 3,000 slaughtered innocents that will be the heart and soul of Ground
Zero, and the Memorial Museum, which will show 9/11 artifacts and relate the
horrors of that day. Both are expected to open in 2009.
Located in a forest of soaring oak trees, the memorial's centerpiece will be
two voids ringed by a curtain of water that cascades into reflecting pools
below. It includes a tomb for unidentified remains, a contemplation room for
family members and a Memorial Gallery lined with the names of the dead.
The 6-acre "memorial quadrant" also will include a 110,000-square-foot,
70-foot-high subterranean museum between the footprints of the twin towers,
providing access to both the bedrock and the original slurry wall.
The memorial complex, along with the more controversial cultural facilities,
the International Freedom Center and the Drawing Center, yards away on
Ground Zero, are expected to cost $800 million.
Gov. Pataki has directed $300 million in federal funds to the memorial
project, which leaves a half-billion dollars in private funds still to be
raised.
Meanwhile, a bill sponsored by Rep. Vito Fossella (R-S.I.) would let federal
taxpayers donate $1 to the memorial by checking a box on their income taxes.
If it becomes law, and if a mere 20% of 120 million tax filers gave a buck a
year, it would generate a $24 million annual windfall.
"It's an opportunity for the American people to step up to the plate and get
directly involved in the future of Ground Zero," Fossella said.
A similar measure pushed by Pataki would create a memorial checkoff box on
New York State tax returns.
Originally published on July 24, 2005
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