What is the hold-up on rebuilding the World Trade Center and other buildings that were destroyed 9 years ago today?
It’s not a rhetorical question and it’s one I don’t have much of an answer too- more of a GQ really but I’m putting it here since there will probably be many different opinions.
Long story short (from past reading) is everyone and their mother feels they have a say in what goes there. The citizens, the politicians, the architects, the owners and so on.
As a result the bickering is ceaseless and nothing happens.
I understand there also isn’t nearly as much demand for New York office space as during the seventies, so even if one or more megatowers were built on the spot, it would hard to profitably lease them.
This. Except thinks have been going for a little while now. Getting anyone to agree and move forward was the issue. Now that the constructions finally started things are expected to move at a similar rate to any other skyscraper project.
According to Wikipedia, One World Trade Center was supposed to top out of the end of 2011, but due to budget problems it’s being pushed back to mid 2013 or the end of 2013
The WTC was a “white elephant” from the start. Ever notice that the ONLY three buildings to fall were all owned by the same guy, who had them grossly overinsured? It’s not like he could have an “accidental” fire right? Heck, building 7 wasn’t even that badly damaged.
I kind of think the design was somewhat flawed. Granted, the aircraft that hit the Towers were significantly larger, it is worth noting that the conventionally built Empire State Building was almost unharmed by an WWII bomber running into it.
We’ve had multiple threads discussing the design of the world trade centers. The airplane hitting the EST and the jets hitting the WTCs are in very few ways similar.
Aside from the crazy’s dude’s nonsense, tghe short version is that not many people actually wanted the ugly things put back. They were bland, unpleasant, and uninteresting. They were notable for their size and twin placement, but other than that… not a particularly beloved landmark. It was something New Yorkers apparently loved more for the remebrance value after they fell than were particualrly wanted during their lifetime.
Thus, nobody really wanted to just rebuild them. New propsoals were floated imediately. I suppose they could have done much worse than the current idea, though it’s not really a great plan either.