Rebuild it, bigger (and put memorial on 200th floor, next to the anti-aircraft guns)

National Review Online ^ | Sept. 13, 2001 | Jonah Goldberg

[seamus]

A gem of a patriotic column (that also has the only McCain quote I could stomach in the past year).
We must rise to this challenge, not shrink from it.

[Mr. Bungle]

Bump.

I like Jonah. I heard him speak on CSPAN for a conservative college students' conference - and he was brilliant - much more than his day-to-day columns might indicate. And he's right about this. Very right.

[Henry F. Bowman]

Incidentally, the Sears tower is taller than the new Malaysian towers, as I recently learned. Apparently, They beat the published Sear heght only by including the base structure ofr broadcasting towers. When the comparable structures of the Sears tower are included, it still reigns.

[RichInOC]

I agree. Rebuild and let the new building(s) stand as the monument. I personally like the symbolism of putting up only one tower as a "finger" to our enemies, but I agree, that lot cannot stand empty.

[Willie Green]

But if we must have a shrine or monument for our remorse, let's put it on the 200th floor, right next to the antiaircraft guns.

This is the 21st Century. The Information Age supposedly renders such a centralized location in Manhatten unnecessary. IMHO, it would actually make a much more powerful statement to declare that we don't need to rebuild on that hallowed real estate. A memorial park would be appropriate.

[Hawkeye's Girl]

Change that to 3 towers, and I'm sold.

[motexva]

It would be completely inappropriate to build on the same lot. This is the site of people's graves, a battlefield like Bull Run or Gettysburg. Minimal construction is allowed on these sites and the WTC site should be set aside as a plaza or park.

Rebuild the WTC if you must (IMO, the age of the mega skyscraper was finished on Tuesday) but the lot must be preserved as a memorial to the victims and their families. I believe this is already being discussed by state, city and federal officials.

[toenail]

[RANGERAIRBORNE]

Why is it that we love to celebrate our defeats? If you go to Pearl Harbor, you will see the beautiful monument to the USS ARIZONA. Certainly a symbol of our greatest military defeat up until 1941. Next to it is anchored the USS MISSOURI , on whose deck the unconditional surrender of Japan was signed. This proud ship is kept there temporarily, supported by private gifts. Why is the DEFEAT more worth memorializing than the ultimate VICTORY??

This is a serious question.

[Iris7]

When the WTC was built the NYC Fire Department said it was going to be impossible to fight a fire in it, or to evacuate the buildings in a short enough period of time when necessary. Politics ruled, the towers were built.

Watching the floors collapse one after the other from the mere weight of the floors above looks like improper design. I say the building was inherantly unsafe.

[DensaMensa]

There's lots of noise about "rebuild it" as though that was the governments job.  But it will be up to private investors to decide if it makes economic sense to build on that site, and if so, to build what? Maybe a big parking garage is what's really needed.

[deadrock]

It is not a grave site. With that thinking, London would have been one great big memorial.

I'm sure most if not all of the victims' relatives would like the towers rebuilt. What finer momument to all that have lost their lives.

[Grig]

Amen. Don't leave them with something they can thump their chest and say 'I did that'.

Wallowing in grief weakens us.

[the bottle let me down]

Jonah's ideal has a certain very visceral appeal. He's certainly right that we don't need another memorial park and that rebuilding is the American thing to do.

Having said all that, you raise some interesting concerns. While electricity, for example, shouldn't be a problem, it seem sto me that a bigger issue might be finding tenants for the new, bigger WTC. Who would want to rent in an demonstrated terrorist target?

In short, if it can be made to work without government subsidies, rebuild bigger and better. Anything but another memorial.

[MooCollins]

This is a FUNDAMENTALLY bad idea,
Why give future terrorist the same target?
Anti aircraft weapons would have been of NO value in this attack whatsoever. A jumbojet shot down over New York at that hour would certainly have killed nearly as many people and would still have the propensity to level the buildings.
We may very well have whitnessed the end of the modern skyscraper as we know it. Corporate security leaders will advise spreading out liabilities instead of concentrating them into one small area. Whithout the support of corporate America the leasing situation of these buildings will become even more dismal than it is today.
These buildings will NOT be rebuilt, let alone bigger than they were. To do so would invite financial ruin for those involved and be a foolish display of arrogance, taunting the inevitable repeat of history.

[MooCollins]

Your thoughts....

[seamus]

Watching the floors collapse one after the other from the mere weight of the floors above looks like improper design. I say the building was inherantly unsafe.

The building was not inherently unsafe. There was nothing improper in the design, indeed, it was so revolutionary in its time that countless skyscrapers imitated its engineering. The floors collapsed one after the other because NO BUILDING can sustain the pressure and weight of 20 floors collapsing. None.

And the floors did not collapse because of the "mere weight" of them. They collapsed because thousands of gallons of jet fuel burned a fire so hot that it melted the steel girders that supported it.

You really ought to know something about elemetary engineering and physics before declaring that just because a building collapses after an unthinkable catastrophic event it is "inherently unsafe."

[motexva]

Well, soon there will be a WWII memorial, de facto acknowledgement of our victory. And we don't have a victory yet in this war. You memorialize people who die like this because their lives and deaths are worth memorializing, as are the lessons one learns through prayer and meditation over events like WTC and PH.