Old North Church in Boston.
I agree with those who said the Statue of Liberty, but to the list of other possibilities that has been accumulating I’ll add Mount Rushmore.
Yeah, I’ve been thinking about this since yesterday and I have to agree that we in the US just don’t have a building or site with the same sort of cultural significance - and hold on the imagination - that Notre Dame has. We just don’t have the install base and history to make that happen.
It’s a variation on the old chestnut: Europe, where 100 miles is a long way. America, where 100 years is a long time.
It’d be a hell of a fire that burned down Mt Rushmore.
You’re kidding, but every time I fly out of Greater Pitt I appreciate Franco and the T Rex.
Mount Rushmore is iconic, but I don’t think many people have any (or much) emotional attachment to.
There are some of us who find it completely forgettable.
The Statue of Liberty won’t burn, and it isn’t the repository of historical/cultural/religious artifacts, either.
I would give 10 to 1 odds that up until yesterday, if you could have somehow magically obtained a truly random, representative sample of all the human beings alive on Earth in 2019, across all countries and cultures, and then asked 100 (or 1000, 10,000, 1,000,000) of them to try to identify 2 different images, one of Notre Dame and one of the Statue of Liberty, at least 5x as many would have gotten the Statue of Liberty compared to Notre Dame.
I am not saying that Notre Dame isn’t iconic, and is not an enduring, inspirational symbol of France, I am saying that the SoL is currently one of the most recognizable images in the entire collective modern human consciousness.
The USA doesn’t have the history, plus we’re a huge country. This is IMHO, so I don’t have a cite, but I think it’s safe to assume that most adults in France have been to Paris. I’ve been to DC and NYC but never to Mt Rushmore and have no desire to.
If the World Trade Center had just burned down and not been attacked, the loss wouldn’t be nearly as emotional. Sure, there would have been heroic stories and tragic ones, but it wouldn’t be such a huge event.
So, no, I don’t think there is a similar building in the USA. Most of my friends are also European travellers and we were all slightly emotional even from across the pond.
I think that our history being shorter and our general attention span being shorter, something on this scale of a reaction is unlikely. But I would offer the Library of Congress as a candidate. Given the things contained there-in and the pedigree some of it has, once it set in I think you could see a sort of “national mourning”.
Let’s not forget that the destruction of the World Trade Center provoked a very strong reaction in Americans, and many other people, that is felt very strongly to this day – and I can’t really say that the WTC were revered buildings. Yes, very notable and famous buildings, but also a very long way from having a intimate tie to our heartstrings, if one sets aside the tragedy that occurred. If the Capitol or Statue of Liberty were destroyed, I think it would be devastating to many Americans.
You’re forgetting this incredibly iconic structure.
Even if they were destroyed by a fire? The WTC reaction was based, in my opinion, on the terrorist attacks and not on the building itself. As I mentioned above, if a fire had broken out in one of the WTC towers on September 11, 2011, I don’t think it would be something people would still be emotional about today.
Without a doubt, but had the towers fallen as a result of an accidental fire, it would still be a huge deal – if for no other reason that actually watching a tragedy like that occur is a major, major deal.
Statue of Liberty
Capitol Building
Independence Hall in Philadelphia (and the Liberty Bell)
Lincoln Memorial
One level down
Alamo
Golden Gate Bridge
Gateway Arch
Sears/Willis Tower
Hoover Dam
Washington Monument
White House
If somehow the Grand Canyon suddenly turned into a landfill, that would be a world-wide tragedy.
I agree, the reaction to the WTC’s destruction was mainly about the cause of it and life lost not the building. It would not have had the same effect in the short or long run if a disastrous accidental* fire had somehow consumed both buildings with no deaths. OTOH I doubt the fire at ND, tragic as it is in material terms, will have anything like the effect on French society or public policy or be remembered as much in 18 yrs as the WTC attacks in case of the US. Kind of apples and oranges I guess.
I think the right answer is that the US just doesn’t have 800 yr old cultural icons. The US has icons as well known or more worldwide (Statue of Liberty is more famous than Notre Dame with the general world population I agree) but they aren’t national/world cultural treasures to the same degree.
*we don’t 100% know if the ND fire was an accident but that seems to be the assumption right now.
Maybe just a New York thing, but watching a beauty like St. Patrick’s Cathedral burning down would be much worse for me than anything in Washington D.C…
Probably Disney World or Disney Land.
No, really. People love those places.
This. It’s a tough question because USA is not Europe, and what makes us US is not what makes them THEM. Notre Dame has witnessed nearly a millennium of change in Paris alone, and that’s why it’s so cool–Europe is nothing if not impressive and proud old stuff. Notre Dame is part of who & what Europe (and especially Paris) is.
So what is USA? Well, coupla things, really. Most recently it has been the longest lived democratic republic in human history. And that’s swell, but as noted it’s a comparatively shallow witness to Western Civilization. Maybe if we were to lose the declaration and the constitution? That’d be rough because they quite literally define who we are as a Western nation, and the handwritten documents are a direct physical link to our origin as a nation. Swab for DNA and you could probably decode one of the founders. Or Bruce the janitor, but you get my point.
But what else are we? Well, there were a few people living here before The Spanish arrived 500 years ago, before the Vikings arrived 1,000 years ago, before subsistence farmers in Manchester, England were still plowing up the dirt with the arsebone of a giraffe, before the pyramids went up in Egypt… Truly, what was important to those people doesn’t get the same reverence from us newcomers, nevertheless, we have been drawn to the same landmarks they held sacred. I can’t be the only one who felt the loss when Yellowstone was burning in 1988. What if we lost our sequoias–forever? What if the climate were to change and the desert southwest became wet, depriving us not only of a massive ecosystem but Native American stuff whose existence today is owed entirely to not having to deal with rainfall? How about if Florida gets submerged, or Mt. Rainier pops, or Yellowstone pops? I know, that’s all really big stuff compared to an 800 year old church but it’s what we have that sorta compares. Pity we don’t prize it more, actually.
Americans were deeply affected by 9/11 but that was because of the loss of life and the feelings of insecurity triggered by a terrorist attack. If the empty towers had been felled by a construction accident many fewer people would be upset about the loss of the buildings.
not what you’d expect’s suggestion is out of left field but I think he’s onto something. People love Disney World. It hosts weddings, post-graduation celebrations family reunions, childhood vacations, championship celebrations, etc. It has woven itself into momentous personally significant occasions for millions of people. Disney World has even been architecturally influential. Disney World obviously lacks the religious significance and political history of Notre Dame but if Disney World were lost, it would be felt by so many Americans I could see the same sort of outpouring of grief that the French have evinced at Notre Dame. Of course, the rest of the world would make fun of us for having this reaction.