Now that the clean up at the WTC site is done the next question is what to do with the site.
If it was up to me I would build a memorial for those who lost their lives in the attack. At the same time I would make it a point to rebuild a building, or buildings, and make them the tallest in the world. Let the enemy know that they knocked down two buildings but the people in the US are stronger than that. Show them that we will overcome and make the city great again.
Any other ideas?
(Mods, I put this here because I think there will be a debate about this issue. If I am wrong IMHO is the next best place)
Actually, this idea’s been kicked about on the boards a time or four since 9/11. Don’t know how many of the threads got lost in The Great Devouring, though.
Personally, I think they should build the buildings so that they look exactly as they did before (maybe taller) and have a memorial in the plaza which features a giant metal (using metal salvaged from the original buildings) phoenix rising from the flames, embedded in the concrete. One each feather of the phoenix would be the names of the people who died in the Towers and in the flames would be the names of the people in the planes who died.
Of course, the photoshop images of five towers with the middle one taller than all the rest make a pretty good case, too.
Lola, I don’t live in NYC, but I’ve been in the buildings. I went up to the top floor, but didn’t go up to the roof because the thought of being up there scared the living shit out of me. I looked out the windows and saw the gap between the floor and the windows and that you could see down to the street level. Damn near shit my pants.
That being said, if they rebuild them, I would be damn proud to work on the top floor with a window seat. We can do one of two things in regards to 9/11:
1.) Hide our heads in the sand
2.) Stick our fists in the air and extend our middle fingers
Personally, I prefer to do number two, and I’m sure the folks who’re going to be moving into the repaired section of the Pentagon would agree with me.
Really? From what I’ve heard, (and my information is several months out of date) that the WTC buildings had as much office space as the entire city of Atlanta and that businesses in NYC and New Jersey were desperately scrambling to find space.
I did speak to one woman in NYC about a month after 9/11 who worked in a high rise (or so she claimed) who was positively hysterical with fear.
Personally, I think the odds of terrorists being able to pull off a stunt similar to 9/11 are pretty slim. If they try to hijack a plane, any passengers on-board will do whatever it takes to stop 'em, and if any large aircraft goes astray, you can bet it’ll have an F-16 off its wing shortly.
As I suggested in a similar thread here shortly after 11-Sept-2001, we should build them so that they can transform into a giant killer robot that can stomp around Manhattan and shoot missiles from its fingertips. Let’s see 'em crash an airliner into that!
Tucker, you’re right - the WTC employed about 50,000 people. But since the attacks, I guarantee you very few of the businesses that were forced to relocate would return, and I highly doubt many new ones would want to move in.
I think it would be good to build the WTC exactly the same as they were before, but with one difference, one extra floor on each tower to serve as a memorial.
i’ve read that 2 buildings 70 stories are being considered. i’d like to see at least one building the height of the towers. perhaps having the stories above 70 or 80 be a memorial museum, observation deck, restaurant. it would be nice to have the memorial up high where most of the people were.
Agreed. Traffic control saw those planes deviate off course and start to head back to NYC about 30 minutes before they hit the towers. Now that we’re aware of the possibilities, any plane that deviates from it’s flight path without orders from traffic control will probably not stay up in the air very long. At the same time, evacuation orders will probably be issued for tall buildings when a nearby aircraft goes off it’s flight plan.
Having said that, I think that in this age of advanced telecommunications (Attrayant shines his own apple), companies don’t need to be geographically located in major metropolitain areas any more. I would bet that many companies are looking at cheap land in low-rent cities with the intention of rebuilding remotely and installing a T1 to set up a VPN so that all their locations, no matter where they are, will seem like they’re in the same building.
I imagine that insurance will be hard or impossible to get on any new construction that exceeds a certain number of floors.
It takes hours to evacuate a building the size of the World Trade Center towers. An extra half an hour lead time will not buy you too much – and it will severely disrupt your business if it turns out to be a false alarm.
Worse, you might not get that full half-hour lead time. Yes, the air traffic controllers on the morning of Sept. 11th knew the airliners were deviating from their flight plans 30 minutes before they hit anything, but even with post-Sept.-11th awareness, they’d have to sort out that the planes were indeed hijacked, that they were indeed headed for Manhattan, and then make the appropriate emergency call, which would have to be routed to local authorities in Manhattan, which would in turn have to make its way to all the people on all the floors of all the tall buildings on that island. By that time, your 30 minute lead time has been cut down to, at best, 10 minutes, and you’ll have a lot of people clogging the (presumably vulnerable) stairwells when the airliner hits.
I feel that if we don’t rebuild the towers to at least their former height and glory, the terrorists have won.
I also feel, sadly, that the destruction of the WTC marked the end of the Age of Skyscrapers. It’s cheaper, safer, and a dozen other good things not to build 'em so tall anymore.
One plan I heard of was to build a single mo-fo of a building encompassing the vertical space of both towers inside. This would serve as a memorial because the physical space formerly occupied by both towers would be empty - two vast atria - and would simulataneously be just about the biggest and grandest building ever. The cost is probably unthinkable, though, not to mention the vulnerability.
What I do NOT want to see is a mere memorial, something along the lines of the empty chairs at OKC. Empty cubicles? Ugh. Trust me, I will have no difficulty remembering what happened on 9/11. Something very big is needed to show we haven’t been defeated.
Well, I guess I’m about the only one who would like to see another Central Park type memorial for the people of New York. One tower, in the style of the Space Needle, in the center. It should be, by law, the highest point in the city.
That’s the message I’d like to send.
Peace,
mangeorge
I think that leaving a 16 acre gap in Lower Manhattan is simply a bad idea. Certainly, it would be economically wasteful to put that sort of resource to waste. Also, it would remain a dead spot in a sea of vitality.
An example of the sort of mood that I’d think would be appropriate for a memorial would be the Holocaust Memorial here in Boston. While it is indeed a place for somber reflection, it also accomodates the hustle and bustle of city life rather than shuns it. Turning the whole WTC site over to a memorial wouldn’t accomplish this. And it would be nice to put a few streets back in the area as well.
Dead spot? Well, I’d hardly call Central Park a dead spot. At least not forty years ago, when I visited. There were streets, shops, vendors, and a lot of attractions. And I’m pretty sure it was a lot larger than sixteen acres. I thought the WTC was bigger than that. I loved Manhattan, with all it’s hustle and bustle, and the (gruff) hospitality of the people.
But It’s your city, New Yorkers. Do with it as you please.
Peace,
mangeorge