"Al Qaeda set out to mutilate our skyline. They succeeded. New York could have rebuilt new, modern Twin Towers after 9/11. And we could have done it quickly. But we did not. We spent more than a decade and $4 billion building a tower that could fit on any generic skyline."
I miss the old skyline of Manhattan with those increible and imposing Twin Towers. The new, One World Trade Center tower does nothing for me. I wish we would have rebuilt those towers. Donald Trump proposed this in 2005, but politicians ignored him.
Which skyline do you prefer?
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25 comments:
The Freedom Tower is fine. No need for grousing about it.
Many people absolutely hated the WTC towers for years: two uninspired, rectangular concrete monoliths.
It's not the "Freedom Tower." Jesus, what a stupid name.
Nobody "hated" the WTC towers. What the hell are you talking about? Who hated it?
Dan I think they were some sort of unique steel skeletal/skin structure ... less concrete...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Construction_of_the_World_Trade_Center#/media/File:Wtc_floor_truss_system.png
Looks like once the top floors collapsed from the heat failure the main trusses and bridging trusses on the lower floors just started to collapse on top of each other in domino effect... only being designed to support one floor (4" lightweight concrete) and furnishings...
http://openbuildings.com/buildings/world-trade-center-profile-2964?_show_description=1
The World Trade Center design brought criticism of its aesthetics from the American Institute of Architects and other groups. Lewis Mumford, author of The City in History and other works on urban planning, criticized the project and described it and other new skyscrapers as "just glass-and-metal filing cabinets". The twin towers' narrow office windows, only 18 inches (46 cm) wide, were disliked by many for impairing the view from the buildings.
The trade center's "superblock", replacing a more traditional, dense neighborhood, was regarded by some critics as an inhospitable environment that disrupted the complicated traffic network typical of Manhattan. For example, in his book The Pentagon of Power, Lewis Mumford denounced the center as an "example of the purposeless giantism and technological exhibitionism that are now eviscerating the living tissue of every great city."
I liked them and so did most New Yorkers.
Kervick, you are one sour person. I don't think I ever met someone as sour as you. What's with you, man? You are sour. Jesus. Is it New Hampshire?
I suppose you have to be there in person to appreciate them. Mountains impress me a lot more than buildings.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/who-s-afraid-of-the-big-bad-buildings-how-new-yorkers-tried-to-stop-the-world-trade-center-a-785206.html
For Muslims, religion is a form of gang warfare. If it's not Sunnis killing Shias or vice versa, it's Muslims having a go at Christians, Athiests, Buddhists or whatever. Re-erecting the twin towers would have been too much temptation for Muslims: they'd have tried to knock them down again.
I'm not sour. I liked the old WTC, and I like the new one too. You're the one who is grumbling and kvetching about the new building, Mike. I'm just pointing out that it is easy to sentimentalize the past through false nostalgia. The original WTC was just as much an object of distaste and criticism as the new one. It took years for the towers to catch on with New Yorkers and become the beloved icons they eventually became. The same thing will happen with the new building.
Jez! Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. So, for example, Tea Party Craazies would prefer the Freedom Tower was in Mock-Feudal style. Personally I like neither old nor new. As for the name "Freedom Tower" how can Americans buy into this "false narrative" name when most of the components were made in China!!!!
Really..."Freedom Tower," what a ridiculous name. That's not the name. It's 1 World Trade Center. We laugh here whenever we hear someone from out of town calling it the Freedom Tower. Are we going back to "Freedom Fries" at McDonald's now, too?
Two arguments can be made, and both with equal validity.
1. Rebuild the towers, bigger and more prominent than before, as a symbol and as a statement that New York is back (not that it ever went away).
2. Build a memorial - gardens, parks, fountains, etc, to remember the unfortunate dead.
The problem was always that this was always the most prime real estate in the world, and money talked. The families of the dead weren't really consulted as much as they should have.
Ralph, maybe you missed it. It's Muslims who are fighting the crazies, and have been for decades. We're the ones supporting the crazies, and predictably the crazies, being crazy, took a lucky shot at the US. As ever, however, the standard is: crazies killing Muslims is just dandy; crazies killing Europeans and North Americans is an outrage.
This is where we learn that crazies killing Muslims is Act 1 of a play that ends in total carnage everywhere. You think that ISIS replacing Assad won't lead to slaughter on the streets of London? The old Niemoller quote should be updated: "First they came for the Muslims, and I did not speak out because I was not a Muslim..."
John,
Who are the "crazies" you claim the Muslims are fighting?
Malmo,
Switch on the television and you'll see it in real time: the Syrian army against ISIS and Al Qaeda affiliates, the Iraqi army and Shia militias against ISIS and Al Qaeda affiliates, the Yemeni army and Shia militias against Al Qaeda affiliates, the Iranian army against ISIS and Al Qaeda affiliates, the Kurdish peshmerga against ISIS and Al Qaeda affiliates, etc. The Turks would get in on the act were it not for the threat of Kurdish secession. No state, predominantly Muslim or otherwise, wants to hand itself over to apocalyptic maniacs who want World War 3, and possibly World War 4. The biggest Islamic countries are the ones you basically never hear anything about - Indonesia, Malaysia, Bangladesh. It's only the ones near Saudi Arabia that get the media attention, but with Saudi Arabia's psychopathic jihad on all neighbours not reported.
Anyway, unless ISIS, Al Qaeda and their affiliates are not to be considered religious crazies, then my point stands. I think they are essentially crazy, and they need to be put down like the crazed zombies they are. The state militaries of the countries I've named are not apocalyptic maniacs and have never been a threat to anyone. They're nationalists who want to defend their respective countries, just like anywhere else.
Until Russia joined the fray recently, all the fighting was done by Muslims, who are justifiably more frightened of ISIS than anybody else: they're first in line of the ISIS crosshairs. I'll support anyone who fights ISIS and co.
As far as I know, the Syrian, Iraqi, Yemeni, Iranian militaries and the Kurdish peshmerga have never threatened the so-called Western world, of which we in our parochialism are far too concerned (rather than the security of the world in general). In fact post-9/11 Iran and Syria were absolutely instrumental in the near destruction of Al Qaeda. It didn't happen because the neoconservative incompetents invaded Iraq and unleashed mayhem.
The Russian Federation has a large Muslim population, around 20 million, IIRC. They are mostly Sunnis.
And the former USSR Central Asian states are predominantly Muslim. LIke Russia they border the Middle East on the Eurasian land mass. This is the "soft underbelly" of Russia that US is targeting using proxies including CIA funded terrorists. This has been established by Russian intelligence and uncharacteristically for Russia the head of intelligence announced it publicly some time ago, which I linked to here at MNE.
Because it worked so well funding and arming the Afghan "freedom fighters" against Russian occupation that morphed to Al Qaeda. Zbig is really proud of engineering that operation and has declared that he is satisfied that the blowback, including 9/11, was well worth it since it contributed to the fall of the USSR, which was the ultimate US objective.
That operation is ongoing, with the objective of carving up Russia into smaller states that will never challenge US hegemony.
John,
Thanks for clarifying. Could not agree more.
Tom,
Great points all.
What Tom says is spot on, and inadvertently bolsters my argument. Lots of predominantly Muslim states in central Asia (the stans) have almost no radical Islamist elements. They are essentially quite liberal and irreligious in the same way people in the UK, say, they're Christian.
Washington, however, sees these now independent states and the predominantly Muslim states within the federation as the "soft underbelly" of Russia and has decided that radical Islam can bring Russia down in the same way that radical Islam helped destroy the Soviet Union. Forget combatting radical Islam. Embrace it and use it. Other than 9/11, the bombings on the London and a few dead French cartoonists, it's been a damn fine tool in global hegemony.
It's about as insane a policy as you can dream up. Unfortunately, this insane plan was dreamt up by the liberal moderates. The neoconservative knuckleheads are even more insane. None of this augurs well for the naked ape.
Lest anyone think Tom and I don't have the evidence to back this up. Here is part of an interview with Zbigniew Brzezinski:
Q: And neither do you regret having supported the Islamic fundamentalism, having given arms and advice to future terrorists?
ZB: What is most important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the cold war?
Q: Some stirred-up Moslems? But it has been said and repeated Islamic fundamentalism represents a world menace today.
ZB: Nonsense! It is said that the West had a global policy in regard to Islam. That is stupid. There isn't a global Islam. Look at Islam in a rational manner and without demagoguery or emotion. It is the leading religion of the world with 1.5 billion followers. But what is there in common among Saudi Arabian fundamentalism, moderate Morocco, Pakistan militarism, Egyptian pro-Western or Central Asian secularism? Nothing more than what unites the Christian countries.
Now part of what Brzezinski says is true. Most Muslims have little in common: an Indonesian Muslim has almost nothing in common with a Saudi Arabian. But understand what he's saying: the West helped shape and give real strength to this menace, it can be used to geopolitical effect and it can be controlled. Well, it can't be controlled. It needs to be put down. The 99% of moderate Muslims are against it and fighting it. We, on the other hand, see it as a useful tool in ensuring the 21st century is another American century in the same way the 20th century was. It ain't gonna happen and it'll end in utter catastrophe.
Right, the US strategy is to use radical "Muslims" (there are lot of radicals that are Muslims in name only, like the Iraqi Baathists turned out by the US and now fighting with the militants) in a proxy war with its "chief adversaries Russia and China" (yes, that is public US policy). After Russia and China are out the picture as threats to US hegemony, then "we" will do in the radical Islamists.
Like the radical Islamists don't realize this. The radical Islamists know full well the plan, as well as Russia and China and a good many others. They are happy to take US funding, as well as Wahhabi and Salafi funding from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, etc. But they also are planning on doing in the US and the liberal West when the time is ripe, too.
Europeans realize that the refugee crisis is being used as set up against them, for example. Obviously, not all refugees are militants but it would be naïve to think that none are.
Parisians hated, and I mean absolutely hated, the Eiffel Tower when it first went up; now, it is the most iconic, arguable the most beloved, piece of architecture in France, if not Europe. So it goes; move on.
Those who want a jihad as well as those who just want to ignore the whole thing are both children. Just be thankful we have an adult in the White House and pray we'll get another one in 2016.
Those who believe the US needs to stir up things with Muslims in Russia are just about as ignorant as those who claim that Obama secretly traveled to Kiev to stir up the 2013 Euromaidan protest. As my early recommendations for them to travel to Kiev city center and speak their nonsense to young men with skinned heads, I now suggest a visit to Moscow's Ostankino district and let just a few of Russia's 15 million Muslims know how peachy you think Putin's propping up Assad and alignment with the Persians.
If you survive both those excursions, let's get really risky with a visit to a political discussion at one of the Orthodox churches and bring up "the Muslim issue" to get a sense of the powder keg Putin's sitting on. Putin knows it; in fact, counting on it to stay in power when those Russian bodies start coming home and he starts blowing up Moscow apartments to keep his serfs fired up and okay with their domestic sacrifices for the good of Mother Putin.
Delusional.
"Those who believe the US needs to stir up things with Muslims in Russia are just about as ignorant..."
Because it hasn't been done before? Because Washington hasn't overthrown numerous democracies. Because Washington hasn't contrived absurd pretexts to go to war (mushroom clouds over New York and the Gulf of Tonkin spring to mind)? Maybe you're still searching for Iraqi WMD?
Anyway, pretty much everything you believe to be the case in international politics is undermined by the declassified release of internal documents (White House, State Department, Pentagon, etc). What is said at the time is usually exactly the opposite of what is being discussed internally. And the Wikileaks stuff has proven this, without having to wait 25 or 30 years for declassification.
I pointed out on another thread one of my favourite instances of intentional public misleading while saying something completely different in house. Discussing the state terrorism the US was subjecting Nicaragua to, Reagan matter-of-factly pointed out to his national security staff: "If such a story gets out, we'll all be hanging by our thumbs in front of the White House..." The American people have to be misled by ludicrous stories. If they can't be misled and find out the truth, US politicians will be "hanging by their thumbs" in front of the White House. Good luck finding those WMD.
I realize the hate-Obama derangement syndrome puts a block on cerebral lobe functioning, but pssss, this is not the 1960s nor is Obama either GW Bush or Ron Ray-gun. Just thought you should know.
Americans are just not use to having an adult in the White House.
If you think that you are delusional.
Obama's so different to all previous occupants that all the Wall Street banks threw so much money at him he nearly drowned. Other big business did the same. They know what he is: Wall Street's greatest benefactor, a fiscal conservative and a hawk. Obama received more campaign donations from Wall Street and big business than anyone in history. Why is that? How about the trade deals that have been negotiated in secret and forced through Congress? Obama makes Bush look like a heroic defender of civil liberties: Bush may have shredded the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, but Obama wiped his derriere with them.
Wall Street and big business have done very nicely out of Obama. Meanwhile the American people can eat dog food, work shitty jobs and drown in a sea of debt. They won't even have dog food and shitty jobs when Obama's largesse causes Wall Street to crash again.
And internationally, this "adult" has many tremendous successes to his name. Off the top of my head:
1. Obama supported the coup against the democratically elected Bolivian government.
2. Obama supported the coup against the democratically elected Ukrainian government.
3. Obama supported the coup against the democratically elected Egyptian government.
4. Obama supported the Saudi military invasion of Bahrain.
5. Obama supports the Saudi military campaign in Yemen: the Saudis are directing Al Qaeda and other jihadis in taking over Yemen.
6. Obama supported the overthrow of Gaddafi, knowing full well that if he fell the jihadis would either rip the country apart or take over completely. Both have happened: the country is being ripped apart by warlords, many of which are linked to Al Qaeda, and ISIS is starting to make gains.
7. Obama's policy is to overthrow Assad translates as support for ISIS takeover, leaving aside all the US weaponry that strangely finds its way to these barbaric maniacs.
8. Obama's "pivot to Asia" (military confrontation with China) is lunatic in the extreme.
There's still time for one more success story to add to all the others. Social security is ripe for the Wall Street takedown.
He's no different to any previous occupant. If he was, he wouldn't be sitting where he is. He can read an auto cue better than previous occupants. I'll give him that.
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