By Eli Attia

If allowed to stand, the decisions made to date [June 20, 2002] around the rebuilding of Ground Zero will doom it forever to what verges on a national disgrace.

The Lower Manhattan Development Corporation and The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, the rebuilding authorities, have already failed the nation in its expectation for a unique, uplifting and visionary project to rise from the ashes of Ground Zero. What should become a new wonder of the world – a true statement of who we are – is emerging as just another speculative real estate development and a memorial at its side.

We cannot let Ground Zero be designed by bureaucrats while our enormous national design talent is ignored. Only the participation of the greatest architectural minds, selected through a national design competition, will allow us to rebuild the World Trade Center in the best way possible.

We must act now to make the site a lasting and fitting tribute to 9/11 and its victims instead of spending billions of public dollars to a mundane project that will stand at Ground Zero for generations to regret.

Please visit the website http://www.phoenixusa.org and sign the petition that calls for a national design competition for Ground Zero - the only possible way to guarantee that what emerges from Ground Zero will be the best that America can create.