September 11th in New York City

I didn’t plan on it but I landed in NYC on September 11th (yesterday). I would not have known the difference except that I saw the occasional army personel posted around the city, in the subways and in the transit centers. Would the terrorists be dumb enough to attack NYC again on the same day? Then why do we put up extra guards on that day? This doesn’t make sense to me.

What did make sense to me was the recollection of what happened at all the football games of the day and the wearing of memorabelia and so forth. I saw many pictures of what is now ground zero and it looks good. I like the fact that the two towers will always be carved out there in the ground, in the form of a fountain headed into the ground at varying levels. I think the consensus was that this is how most people felt as well about the memorial.

The consensus was also that the new “One World Trade Center” building is a non-imaginitive, dull substitute. Well I am no architectural expert, but what did you expect? The Egyptian Pyramids? The Eiffel Tower? The new world trade center building is a monstrous modern glass skyscraper just next to ground zero. It looks perfectly fine with its shimmering reflectivity and powerful presence. If this is not what was wanted then why did they build it? There are literally a million buildings that look just like it in NYC alone. This had to have been known ahead of time.

My guess is that the people who ultimately made this decision made it with costs in mind. Doing something outrageous in the design would have cost a lot more money and in this economy would have certainly been frowned upon. I totally agree with this if this is the case.  I also see no harm in what they did. There is another building there now that will accomplish similar functions as the first two, and we have a memorial. The terrorists did not accomplish their goal and that is the point. We moved on.