NEW YORK, Oct. 3 (UPI) -- Donald Trump thinks the World Trade Center should be rebuilt "stronger," "tougher" and "more beautiful" than the Twin Towers and almost two-thirds of New Yorkers agree.
"I do think you can build a building, a great building, a lot tougher than the World Trade Center turned out to be," Trump told Barbara Walters in a discussion of how commerce and commemoration will either collide or cooperate during the rebuilding of lower Manhattan on Wednesday's "20/20" on ABC-TV.
Trump said different materials and better fireproofing would be needed along with more concrete.
"Concrete doesn't burn to the same extent, obviously, as steel," he said. "I was not at all satisfied with the way those buildings came down.
"You can blame heat, you can blame whatever you want to do. But we can build a lot tougher buildings than that, that frankly are more beautiful than the World Trade Center."
"The World Trade Center was never considered great architecture until Sept. 11," Trump said. "Now something happened that made all of sudden everybody keep over the World Trade Center."
"Well, I think that the World Trade Center represented something very, very special. It represented freedom. It represented power and majesty, and it really became a target. One of the things that I feel we have to do is build our buildings stronger, so that they could withstand attack, if necessary," he added.
Trump; famed architect Richard Meier; Marilyn Taylor, chairman of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill; and Terence Riley, architectural curator at the Museum of Modern Art; joined Walters for a conversation on what the Twin Towers represented and what should be built in its place on "20/20," which airs Oct. 3 at 10 p.m. (EDT) on ABC.
In a statewide poll of registered voters released Wednesday, the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute in Hamden, Conn., found that 63 percent of voters surveyed said the World Trade Center should be rebuilt by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey while 28 percent said they were against it.
The port authority, a bi-state agency, which manages airports, interstate bridges, tunnels and the PATH trains that run between New York and New Jersey, built the World Trade Center in the 1970s.
According to the survey, many New Yorkers are worried or at least somewhat worried -- 61 percent -- that a family member would become the victim of a terrorist attack and almost 40 percent said they were less likely to fly as a result of the attacks.
Eighty percent of New York state voters surveyed said they supported military action against "groups or nations responsible for terrorist attacks" but 11 percent said they did not.
Sixty-four percent said there was a greater risk of future terrorist attacks if the United States did not take military action, but 23 percent said military retaliation would bring a greater risk of terrorism. However, only 43 percent were very confident the U.S. government could find and punish the people responsible for the attacks on New York and Washington.
The poll also found that 74 percent felt New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani did an excellent job in speaking to the nation in the wake of the terrorist attacks.
In other news, New York City sold $1 billion in "recovery notes" or Fiscal Series A notes this week, with a retail order period conducted Monday -- but could have sold $3 billion more.
"For every dollar we sold we could have sold three more," the mayor said.
Also Wednesday, Giuliani said 5,219 victims were listed with the police as missing, down about 400, after cross-checking duplicate lists -- 363 were listed as dead and 301 were identified -- 64 were firefighters.
"Several firefighters' bodies were found in a stairwell in the World Financial Center," Giuliani said.
The mayor warned that some families told the city that they had been offered to purchase urns that contained something form the World Trade Center.
"People are trying to sell something and it's fraudulent," he said. "They are trying to deceive you and people shouldn't purchase anything like that."
Giuliani said that in the next several weeks a wooden urn with some soil from the World Trade Center will be given by the city to all of the families who lost a relative in the World Trade Center attack.
It was also announced that:
-- 5,219 people are registered as missing by the police
-- 363 declared dead
-- 301 identified dead
-- 4,392 listed as missing by relatives
-- 1,369 requested government assistance
-- 64 firefighters declared dead
-- 1,202 death certificate requested
-- 161,387 tons of material and rubble removed
-- 70 buildings damaged but stable, repair, cleaning
-- 12 buildings listed with major structural damage
-- 1 building torn down
-- no single occupancy cars, with exceptions, allowed to enter Manhattan below 63rd St.
-- bridge traffic into Manhattan down 12 percent to 75 percent
-- $100 million a week estimate for clean up
-- $40 billion estimate for cost of attack
-- $7 billion estimate to remove WTC rubble
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(reported by Alex Cukan in Albany, N.Y.)
