The idea that you would take the hallowed ground where 3000 americans died and build an office building on it strikes me as appalling, but if you can get the majority of New Yorkers to do it, I guess go for it. We didn't rebuild the Murrah building, we don't build on major civil war battlefields, Americans tend to memorialize their dead. Again, I will support the residents of NYC to do what they will with the site, but your assertion that most NYers want to rebuild the towers flies in the face of my own experience with them.
Really. My business takes me here 24/7, since I live right here. I speak to many more New Yorkers than you do, so my sample is better.
virtually everyone I have spoken to about this there thinks some sort of memorial should be built
Some sort of memorial, yes. Not a park, not a cemetary, not a necropolis, not a wimpy low-rise building, and most certainly NOT on the entire sixteen acres as many activists are pushing for. The footprints of the towers are more than sufficient space to be devoted to memorial purposes, and my preference would be for an interactive museum similar to what was done on Ellis Island. The tallest building in the world can go next door somewhere.
which of course doesn't mean you couldn't replace the office space elsewhere in the city.
It has to be replaced THERE, or the neighborhood will die. I remember when Battery Park City was a frontier, with nary even a grocery store for the people brave enough to move down there, and I have no desire to see it return to that state now.
Some of my friends also fear the construction of the gigantic memorial you describe, the general feeling that if some enormous statue or ziggurat was built then the entire NYC skyline becomes a memorial.
Not a statue or ziggurat, for crying out loud. A building. If people would consider the entire skyline a memorial, I wonder what they thought the skyline was before 9/11. That empty space needs to be filled. It hurts to look at it. What's more, it's something that our enemies can point to with pride at the moment, and in every future generation, and we simply can't have that.
The idea that you would take the hallowed ground where 3000 americans died and build an office building on it strikes me as appalling
Get ready to be even more appalled by an opinion of mine. It's not hallowed ground. It's defiled ground. It was defiled by mass murder on 9/11. The way to redeem it is definitely not by backing off and encouraging people pretend it's anyone's "final resting place"--since nothing and no one is buried there anymore, and there is in fact NO GROUND left at the site anymore. It was the spot where many people died, but it is no cemetary, and I resent the people who wish me to treat it like one. The way to redeem the ground that was once sacred, as every foot of ground in the US was prior to 9/11 whether we all realized it or not, is to build again in a big way, not to insist that we live with the defilement and the amputation and learn to love it.
but if you can get the majority of New Yorkers to do it, I guess go for it.Thanks for your permission, but I already know I won't get what I want. The fix is in. We're going to cave in to PC and to the feelings of a vocal minority of activists, advocates and anti-capitalists and settle in the end for a solution that pleases nobody, not even them.
Again, I will support the residents of NYC to do what they will with the site, but your assertion that most NYers want to rebuild the towers flies in the face of my own experience with them.
I've taken the liberty of pinging a few New Yorkers here, in order to broaden your experience.
Sorry, but that is just not true at all.
My business takes me to NYC once a month,
I live a few blocks from the WTC site and probably have a better feel of sentiment around here than you do.
virtually everyone I have spoken to about this there thinks some sort of memorial should be built,
So does everyone I've talked with about it, but the memorial shouldn't take over the whole 16 acres.
which of course doesn't mean you couldn't replace the office space elsewhere in the city.
With all due respect, you know squat about this city. The local economy here is still suffering and more than a few small businesses have gone belly up, because of the lack of clientele.
Some of my friends also fear the construction of the gigantic memorial you describe, the general feeling that if some enormous statue or ziggurat was built then the entire NYC skyline becomes a memorial.
Most of us are pretty sensitive about that gaping hole in the sky, especially when I walk to the corner of where I live and stare at the emptiness there.
The idea that you would take the hallowed ground where 3000 americans died and build an office building on it strikes me as appalling, but if you can get the majority of New Yorkers to do it, I guess go for it.
Most people -- even those of us who are aggressively pro-rebuilding the towers -- agree that the "footprints" of where the towers stood should be where the memorial is built. But why condemn the whole 16 acres of valuable real estate? If you want to claim every spot where every little bit of hallowed dust and debris fell that morning, you might as well just close down and empty out all of Manhattan south of Canal Street -- as well as parts of Brooklyn.
We didn't rebuild the Murrah building, we don't build on major civil war battlefields,
Those weren't major centers of U.S. and world commerce.
Americans tend to memorialize their dead.
Which can be done without turning all over lower Manhattan into a giant cemetary.
Again, I will support the residents of NYC to do what they will with the site, but your assertion that most NYers want to rebuild the towers flies in the face of my own experience with them.
Your lack of experience is painfully inaccurate. Just about everyone I know is for building them higher, and I'm not just talking about conservatives.