What a difference a year makes. This time last, the Freedom Tower was a highly contested and unresolved image failing to anchor the plans to revitalize the WTC site. There was an ugly dispute about authorship, control and the likelihood of resolution bespeaking of synthesis was remote. Now, everything is…
The story is so pathetic at this point, the ledes write themselves. And like any good craven self-interest, a story rich in conflict and failure makes for convenient journalism.
Everyone
writes about it, and the narrative is rigorous and consistent: The process is bankrupt, and Pataki seems incapable of both realizing or repairing the damage. Proposed alternates seem naïve, such as Goldberger’s call for housing — by Calatrava no less — or simply don’t exist.
For now we will be treated to the sad spectacle of nudging the Freedom Tower model back and forth forty feet to determine the optimal security configuration. Presumably this motion will also shake free any remnants of Libeskind’s folly, leaving the svelte, featureless office block Childs is so expert at manifesting. Its pristine form will be matched by floor after floor of unoccupied space. This would be perhaps the best possible outcome for those of us that find rebuilding a morally questionable gesture in the first place.
A friend writes and wonders if government workers will be drafted as the unwitting patriots. The irony of mandating relocation to symbolize freedom? Priceless. Better still, they could make it a Gulf War veteran’s facility. I look forward to the day a worker shows up with a bull’s-eye tee-shirt and is fired, or arrested. The myriad expressions of freedom are going to be a daily joy. Given that assembly will be prohibited, I wonder what other forms will be restricted? Can
Reverend Billy perambulate the renovated site and recite the First Amendment? Can booksellers set up and offer tomes critical of Dubya? Will anyone, in the end, be allowed to do anything that is not proscribed and prescripted by the nebulous, Orwellian Freedom Center?
These are far too incendiary topics to broach. It is better to hide behind the tepid relevance of form, and the bizarre proclamations that a twisted tower that ascends to a mythical and irrelevant measure is manifestly different than one that unwracks itself and discards the finials and crenellations. Their programmatic similarity propels us into a bewildering echo chamber where competing voices comprised mainly of braying politicians in pursuit of the empty celebration of their ego or the blood-lust of developers who press forward without regard for decency or the will of the people (were that something that could be established with any certainty), blindly faithful that someday the need will return. The different plans they tout are sly mirrors of the same close-minded evaluation that presumes floor plates of ever-expanding girth to match the banal environs that surround cities across the county. We are led by fools who operate in the thrall of foxes.
Pataki promised a revised plan in a week, then a month, and then the LMDC announced everything was fixed already. Or maybe not. Perhaps my memory is occluded by the switch-backs and revisions, all of which are pointless, since we have yet to even be presented with the concept that was exposed as a failure even before its revelation.
When the smoke and smell that would not dissipate blanketed us all, hope seemed impossible, and negative cycle of despair seemed as permanent as the fires that could not be extinguished. For a hundred days we lived with the inescapable horror. Now, the site is nominally cleaned, and actual remnants are few, so the charades we witness each day cannot carry the same visceral weight. Thus it is essential to live with that memory and anger, to provide sufficient verve to assail the moronic machinations that continue to unfold. Silverstein should surrender his lease. Pataki should resign, or at least withdraw from the decision making. The PANY/NJ should cede authority. And they should apologize, for all of it. For they have taken from us what remained on the morning of September 12 — dignity.
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Have you heard? Ground Zero is a mess and Pataki is an idiot.
What a difference a year makes. This time last, the Freedom Tower was a highly contested and unresolved image failing to anchor the plans to revitalize the WTC site. There was an ugly dispute about authorship, control and the likelihood of resolution bespeaking of synthesis was remote. Now, everything is…
The story is so pathetic at this point, the ledes write themselves. And like any good craven self-interest, a story rich in conflict and failure makes for convenient journalism. Everyonewrites about it, and the narrative is rigorous and consistent: The process is bankrupt, and Pataki seems incapable of both realizing or repairing the damage. Proposed alternates seem naïve, such as Goldberger’s call for housing — by Calatrava no less — or simply don’t exist. For now we will be treated to the sad spectacle of nudging the Freedom Tower model back and forth forty feet to determine the optimal security configuration. Presumably this motion will also shake free any remnants of Libeskind’s folly, leaving the svelte, featureless office block Childs is so expert at manifesting. Its pristine form will be matched by floor after floor of unoccupied space. This would be perhaps the best possible outcome for those of us that find rebuilding a morally questionable gesture in the first place. A friend writes and wonders if government workers will be drafted as the unwitting patriots. The irony of mandating relocation to symbolize freedom? Priceless. Better still, they could make it a Gulf War veteran’s facility. I look forward to the day a worker shows up with a bull’s-eye tee-shirt and is fired, or arrested. The myriad expressions of freedom are going to be a daily joy. Given that assembly will be prohibited, I wonder what other forms will be restricted? Can Reverend Billy perambulate the renovated site and recite the First Amendment? Can booksellers set up and offer tomes critical of Dubya? Will anyone, in the end, be allowed to do anything that is not proscribed and prescripted by the nebulous, Orwellian Freedom Center? These are far too incendiary topics to broach. It is better to hide behind the tepid relevance of form, and the bizarre proclamations that a twisted tower that ascends to a mythical and irrelevant measure is manifestly different than one that unwracks itself and discards the finials and crenellations. Their programmatic similarity propels us into a bewildering echo chamber where competing voices comprised mainly of braying politicians in pursuit of the empty celebration of their ego or the blood-lust of developers who press forward without regard for decency or the will of the people (were that something that could be established with any certainty), blindly faithful that someday the need will return. The different plans they tout are sly mirrors of the same close-minded evaluation that presumes floor plates of ever-expanding girth to match the banal environs that surround cities across the county. We are led by fools who operate in the thrall of foxes. Pataki promised a revised plan in a week, then a month, and then the LMDC announced everything was fixed already. Or maybe not. Perhaps my memory is occluded by the switch-backs and revisions, all of which are pointless, since we have yet to even be presented with the concept that was exposed as a failure even before its revelation. When the smoke and smell that would not dissipate blanketed us all, hope seemed impossible, and negative cycle of despair seemed as permanent as the fires that could not be extinguished. For a hundred days we lived with the inescapable horror. Now, the site is nominally cleaned, and actual remnants are few, so the charades we witness each day cannot carry the same visceral weight. Thus it is essential to live with that memory and anger, to provide sufficient verve to assail the moronic machinations that continue to unfold. Silverstein should surrender his lease. Pataki should resign, or at least withdraw from the decision making. The PANY/NJ should cede authority. And they should apologize, for all of it. For they have taken from us what remained on the morning of September 12 — dignity.