My father and I used to go down to the WTC on saturdays so he could buy his chartbooks (remember those - before computer charting programs). When I lived in manhattan, I would take the subway to the towers and walk to work. When my wife went to new york for the first time, I took her to the top of the towers. Not the empire state. On 9/11, one of my college roomates' brother lost his life in the towers. On a trip back to new york, I visited the scar in the earth where they were. I remember the subway station. I remember the lobby. I remember the observation center. I remember windows on the world and cellar in the sky. Rebuild the towers the way they were. If there was ever any greater act of defiance to an unrepentant enemy, that would be it. You can destroy it, but we will simply rebuild. Again and again, if need be. Whatever it takes. I remember the towers.
yes, the name is very lame. but the average "yeah!! freedom! go usa!" idiots will probably like it. i don't know what the plan is now but, also lame is the "we have to make it one story taller than before!!" if we wanted to be cool, we'd rebuild, but put a decent size, non flashy building there, perhaps shorter than the WTC..or the same height as the old one. why do we need to prove anything to anyone? why do we need to make tall buildings to show our strength. how about we do it in other ways that actually matter and don't annoy the rest of the world.
The world's tallest building is in Kuala Lumpur. Dubai has some of the best looking modern skyscrapers being built. I don't think imposing hi-rise=annoyance to Allah.
DrSteph, I completely agree with you. And there is no doubt in my mind that architects and security men could unobstrusively address whatever security issues there were in the delivery/underground areas that were raised by the 93 attack. And call it World Trade Center. Geo.
I can't believe they're really sticking to this atrocious design, and that 'insult atop injury' name. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061119/ap_on_re_us/attacks_redevelopment <b>WTC's Freedom Tower starts to take shape</b> By AMY WESTFELDT, Associated Press Writer 33 minutes ago NEW YORK - Seventy trucks rolled into ground zero Saturday to pour the concrete base of the signature skyscraper at the new World Trade Center, creating the first visible signs of the long-delayed tower. The concrete mixers began by dropping 520 cubic yards of concrete near thin steel bars jutting from the bottom of ground zero. The base will anchor the 1,776-foot Freedom Tower's concrete core. Next month, the first steel beams for the tower are scheduled to rise. The site has been bustling in recent months, with work on half a dozen projects under way after years of disputes about designs and authority over the redevelopment. "We've really turned this site around," said Steve Plate, director of priority capital programs for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which owned the trade center. The work continued despite calls from some family members of victims to halt construction. A search for human remains is ongoing in the area after more than 200 bones were found in manholes on the site's western edge. A search on the rooftop of the Millennium Hilton continued Saturday. Gov. George Pataki's chief of staff John Cahill said the city needs to be sensitive to families' needs, but "it is time to build this site." For visitors who peer through distant metal fences for a look into the 70-feet-deep pit, it may take time to see the buildings take shape on Manhattan's skyline. Project manager Mel Ruffini said it would take nearly two years for the Freedom Tower to reach street level. Work on the Freedom Tower got under way earlier this year after the Port Authority renegotiated developer Larry Silverstein's lease to rebuild on the site. It is scheduled to open in 2011. The agency is preparing the eastern end of the site for three more office towers, and earlier this week poured part of the concrete foundation for a permanent transit hub. Construction of the memorial to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks began this spring. This week workers began drilling into parts of the south tower's footprint to begin building columns that will support the twin reflecting pools meant to symbolize the lost towers.
Bingo! The Freedom tower is exactly that 3000 killed as a Blood sacrifice and a elaborate phallic temple built to honor Baphomet. The real god of the American and world elite. ( Skulls and bones is the Jr. league ) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baphomet
Agree 100%. What better way to show the zealots what we're made of? In the few years after 9/11, I was hoping and praying that I would open the newspaper one day and see the news that a conglomerate including the big insurers had agreed to build them back, but this time build them 1 story higher than they were before. Wishful thinking but I can tell you this - it would be a big deal on the day they cut the ribbon, and I would be there for sure.
I disagree. The reason "tallest buildings" are a leading indicator of a downturn is because they are a lagging indicator of credit/speculative bubbles. The motives for building most of them are that the country (or corporation) in question had been swimming in so much money that it thought it a jolly good idea to "celebrate" (i.e. show off) it's new found riches, and the hubris had reached such a stage that they decided to do so by building a tallest building. In this case of the "Freedom Tower", the relationship breaks down because the motives had nothing whatsoever to do with a prior period of massive economic prosperity climaxing in an orgy of speculation and absurdly overconfident provision of credit. In fact, the tower was proposed only shortly after the first US recession in a decade, and its worst stockmarket crash since the 1970s, if not the Depression. Rather, the motives for building the tower were in reaction to a major terrorist attack. Therefore, the size/downturn correlation is in this case entirely specious. The size of the tower has no predictive value whatsoever for the US economy or stockmarket.
Why are symbols so damn expensive? Lets face it, these things are not buildings-most of the largest 'things "ever to have been built were TOMBS for gawd sake, why is bigger better? Built by the rich , for the rich, just another edifice of folly and bollocks.