I’d probably be more upset if Mount Rushmore was destroyed in an earthquake than if any of the aforementioned buildings were destroyed. Mostly because the buildings can always be rebuilt but it’s incredibly unlikely that anything like Mount Rushmore would allowed to carved into a mountain again.
Perhaps loss of a state itself, as the US is very diverse and that diversity is in the concept of US statehood. It goes to one of the cores of the nation.
Son of a Rich:
Obviously I mean destruction in the general sense, not necessarily by fire.
For me the Library of Congress immediately comes to mind.
To turn this around, watching the spire collapse gave me the same feeling as I had watching the towers crumble on 9-11. The feeling that something of indescribable horror had just happened, that something had ended and that things would never be the same again.
Don’t sell nature short - the Old Man of the Mountain got taken out by mother nature and time. A big earthquake could destroy a lot of things and the east coast is decades overdue for a major one.
Maybe my Philly bias showing, but I’d go with Independence Hall. Most significant historical building in America. Every time I’m in there I look around at the substantially wooden structure and hope to hell there is some sort of hidden advanced fir suppression system.
As we are a relatively young country, I think it would be worse if it happened to a natural landmark. If the Redwood Forest were to be destroyed on a wildfire, that would break my heart.
So what? I could show all the human beings alive on earth a picture of Donald Duck and probably most of them would know what it is. Does that make it the most important of all cultural icons?
Of course the Statue of Liberty is iconic and historic. But simply being recognizable is in itself, if taken alone, a poor measure of historic value. The Statue of Liberty is just a statue, capable of being replaced with essentially no perceptible difference, while Notre Dame is a more than 800-year-old vast cathedral, a labor of love that has been crafted and re-crafted and expanded and enhanced countless times throughout her storied history. It also contains priceless artifacts of all kinds that are as old or older as the building itself, as historic or perhaps even more so. So I really couldn’t care less how many people around the world could recognize it in a picture compared to other great cathedrals – it was a vastly detailed living record of history and such losses as were sustained were immeasurable losses to the world and its culture. The only saving grace is that much of it was saved and it will be rebuilt.
True.
Speaking as a lifelong New Yorker (and someone who was actually in the WTC for the 1993 bombing), the Twin Towers were really just second-tier office space. They had no cultural significance whatsoever.
Which, of course, in no way diminishes the impact of the attack of September 11, 2001.
I’m just saying that the buildings themselves had no particular significance.
Yeah, I had the same thought process that nothing here really has the same combination of symbolic structure + contents, with the White House coming closest. But the White House already burned down and was rebuilt once, it isn’t nearly as old as Notre Dame, and at any given time roughly half the country would happily burn down the administration it represents.
There’s also the religion factor. That hits a lot of people hard. I don’t know how religious France is currently, but they’re certainly historically Catholic. I would venture to say that the US has a less homogenous shared religious culture than France.
The US is too large / spread out and too new to have anything on quite the same scale that would hit as hard for the same proportion of citizens. There may be some landmarks that would have a similar effect locally (like the aforementioned Alamo). Personally, I was sad when the Old Man crumbled but I was also laughing at myself because I knew it was silly. Someone else already explained well how the World Trade Center was a vastly different situation.
I disagree with both of you. It’s not necessarily the amount of history, but the iconic nature. Myself, I think the Statue of Liberty burning down or being destroyed would have a similar impact, though in a different way. It’s not a religious symbol, but it’s still an extremely iconic symbol that is recognized world wide and would have quite an emotional impact.
All that said, the fire was devastating to me, personally. I have pictures of my wife and I there when we were in our 30’s, laughing and having a good time. My wife and I broke them out last night when we heard the news and I cried. I’m tearing up right now, just thinking about it. 
I’m really surprised that it took 35 posts to get to Independence Hall. It’s where this country (& the basis for modern democracies) was founded.
I’d humbly suggest that monuments like the Statue of Liberty, Lincoln Memorial, Washington Monument, Mt. Rushmore are just iconic monuments; nothing much necessarily happened there. Yes, some politician may have given a speech in front of one of them but the monument itself doesn’t have the history that Independence Hall does.
But independence hall isn’t iconic outside of America. Hell, my WAG is most non-Americans would, at best, have a vague idea of what it is. On the other hand, the Statue of Liberty is a symbol that is widely recognized outside of the US by millions…maybe even billions. They might not know much about America, but just about everyone knows what the SoL is.
As a Chicagoan, I kinda feel the same way about the Sears Tower. It’s an office building.
There are certainly monuments and structures that mean something to us emotionally, but I don’t think any of those listed have anywhere near the level of artistic and historic significance that the impact would be similar.
The Lincoln Memorial could be rebuilt and the new one would serve as well as the old. None of those monuments are old enough such that the loss would be as devastating as losing something like the Taj Mahal or the Sistine Chapel.
As Bear_Nenno intimated, the Smithsonian comprises multiple buildings, museums, and institutions scattered across the Mall and beyond. This includes the National Air and Space Museum, the National Zoo, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, the National Museum of Natural History, and a hell of a lot more. The red brick building, usually called the Castle, is just the visitor center and some offices. A fire that took out “The Smithsonian”, even if we limit ourselves to the DC buildings, would also take out most of the core of Washington, DC. If it just took out the Castle, well, no small loss.
I did a quick google search, and, unsurprisingly, there are over 200 replicas of the Statue of Liberty outside of the US. I had seen one in Paris (there are apparently 4, and several others around France in various other cities), and I thought I remembered one in Taiwan and one in Japan, but I was amazed to see where they all are…it’s a staggering number and the places range from across Europe, Central and South America to Asia, even in the Middle East. Hell, there are 4 in China (I’d guess these are more tourist things, as there are all sorts of things like this in China, including replica Bavarian villages and such)!
I don’t think that the age of an iconic building or monument is everything. For good or ill, the US has impacted people around the world, and our symbols are pretty well known. And that one is probably one of the best known.
I agree. The WTC wasn’t that big a hit when it first went up, as I recall. If they had come down in an ordinary fire I don’t think there would be sobbing and singing of hymns like there was in Paris.
I think the closest thing to Notre Dame in the US has to be the Statue of Liberty. Maybe the White House as a close second.
Neither American nor French but the fall of the first tower on 911 was far more horrific to me. Up until that point I was focused upon a scene of escape and rescue, then I witnessed the death of hundreds. The recent Grenfell fire in the UK came closer.