When we started talking about what to rebuild at Ground Zero, there was a strong faction urging us to "build them back, taller" or some variant thereof. As many of you know, I started this blog when I was working down at Ground Zero for one of the recovery company. My feeling was that the twin towers footprint should be preserved as a simple memorial: an open grassy space with the outlines of the buildings laid in bricks or something similar. My feeling was that the only way to appreciate the magnitude of what happened was to be able to see, across an open space, just how big the buildings were. I also felt that we should have a public space where people could be--not work, not shop, but simply enjoy other people.
But there was another reason I was against building new buildings there; the twin towers never really worked. It took a massive financial boom to make them desirable locations, and even then, they weren't a great address. Tall buildings don't work that well--above about fifty stories, the elevators needed to transport the people start crowding out the usable office space. This is why the WTC had those ridiculous "sky lobbies" where you had to change elevators to get to the top floors. Needless to say, on 9/11 the sky lobbies turned into death traps.
Once you throw in the fact that whatever gets built there will probably exert a magnetic fascination upon Al Qaeda and their ideological brethren, you've got a building that could only be built by the government (as, indeed, was true of the originals--they were pet projects of Nelson Rockefeller). There's nothing noble or grand about building office buildings where nobody wants to put an office. And I don't feel that Gettysburg is somehow "giving in to the Confederacy" because people no longer farm there.
Exhibit A: Merrill Lynch has pulled out of negotiations to take space in Larry Silverstein's buildings. It seems to me that it's time to rethink the whole project of putting more office space there, and turn the area into a national monument. If you're worried about losing commercial space--though this is hardly a current issue for New York's beleaguered financial industry--there are green spaces and low rise in the surrounding area that could be bought with eminent domain and built up.
there are green spaces and low rise in the surrounding area that could be bought with eminent domain and built up
Hopefully Nick Gillespie doesn't read this
Another plus would be the fact that there need be no embarrassment over the fact that seven years on, there is still nothing there.
If on 9/11 other hijacked airliners had struck, for example, EPCOT Center, the Mall of America or the MGM Grand, I guarantee you that the structures would have been completely rebuilt and put back into operation by now. Only in New York, with its total bumbling incompetence toward any sort of public works projects, could this ridiculous situation be allowed to happen.
What is needed is for the federal government to take over Ground Zero's rebuilding and do whatever is necessary to get it rebuilt as soon as humanly possible. No matter what the cost.
Always interesting to hear commentary on the WTC from a New Yorker. Funny how so many people who never saw them in person have such strong opionions of them. Even more funny those people chiming in on the subject who despise New Yorkers.
A friend of mine from NY thought they should be rebuilt in some form because the real estate there was so valuable, something had to go up. I dunno, but downtown NY does seem pretty pricey to leave vacant, then again I don't live there.
Actually, based on the current situation I think it's fairer to say that if you don't build it they won't come. 7 years on, and only WTC 7 is up. Everything else has been delayed - again. Why? Well, bureaucratic BS that belongs in the dictionary next to "bad project management".
Merrill Lynch doesn't have a problem with a big office building downtown. They have a problem with the project being so screwed up that they can't get a straight answer to when and what will be built.
As far as I can tell, there are still (at least) 10 vacant floors in tower 7 (immediately north of Ground Zero, rebuilt after being damaged on 9/11). I don't think people will be rushing to lease space in the Freedom Tower. I think Megan's suggestion is excellent, except that it is an awfully large site and you might want to have a bit of retail or something near the transit center.
Somebody remind me: what was wrong with the original Daniel Kahneman design? Oh yeah, I forgot -- it was beautiful.
As far as I know, disrupting Union agriculture was not among the goals of the Confederacy.
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If it's a memorial, to whom is it a memorial? The only answer I keep coming back to is that it is a permanent memorial to the hijackers, and they don't deserve it.
I think Holocaust memorials are valuable because they say, "Never again." Gettysburg is a critical point in our nation's history. This was 20 hijackers driving planes into buildings.
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If anything, I think we have invested too much significance into "the magnitude of what happened." It helped get us into a war that has killed several times as many people.
Obviously, it is significant to anyone who lost friends in the towers, but the same could be said of an auto accident. They don't have to be permanent memorials.
Of course, as a self-styled "libertarian," Megan, you would be solidly opposed to using eminent domain in this way - wouldn't you?
"original Daniel Kahneman design"
Isn't it Daniel Libeskind? Not that I know anything about architecture.
I say, let's pave paradise and put up a parking lot......
It is your fundamental opinion on why the space should remain vacant with which I take umbrage. If, for instance we were to leave it at the fact that businesses simply do not want to rent space here, or that it is an inefficient space, or if it would only take any number of bureaucratic tail-wagging-the-dog initiatives to create whatever building would be placed there, I would totally agree. But to resign finally to the idea that we should have a place where people are encouraged to interact with each other rather than engage in commerce seems like a utopian platitude on the very same level as building a monument 1776 stories high, only on the other side of the ideological spectrum.
I am, for the record a former New Yorker. I grew up a few miles from the towers outside Manhattan, and was living six blocks from them the day they fell. I never liked them aesthetically. But I have always felt that New York, has as one of its many virtues, its beautiful skyscrapers, particularly its Art Deco pieces. I feel that the idea of structural austerity, gaining fashionable influence with ideologues like Adolf Loos (Ornament is Crime, Function over Form, etc.), took an unfortunate foothold in architecture since then. And while a few brave souls attempt to create works of beauty and grandeur, we seem now to have fused the ideas of design austerity with sustainable architecture, in an alliance that has produced some of the most hideous designs ever conceived (I know, I’ve worked with the Los Angeles Business Council – every building design and material must go through “Green Provisions”).
It is extreme and unseemly to ask for a 1776 story glass spike. But it is also culturally obscene to hear Mayor Bloomberg say something to the effect of “The age of the skyscraper is over” – echoing that arch villain from The Fountainhead, I’m sure obliviously. If it makes no logical sense to build it, we shouldn’t. But if such were the case, and we had an opportunity to build another Chrysler Building, or another GE Building, or Empire State Building, it would be truly tragic to terminate that endeavor for the sake of an abstract humility.
My feeling is that we should have rebuilt the towers looking exactly the same (albeit with modern technology incorporated). I hate (absolutely hate) the idea of turning the WTC area into a mausoleum. A tasteful plaque or wall commemorating the fallen should have sufficed. For me it would be a testament that you cannot break the will of New York (and America). We can rebuild whatever you crazy a**holes destroyed. And "simply enjoying other people" is not something New Yorkers do (whatever the heck it means).
That is what I feel. If you asked a 1,000 people, you’d have 1,000 different ideas. There are no perfect answers here. However, I wish they would hurry up and build something. This is becoming embarrassing.
Sell the property to a private developer and let them do whatever they want with it.
Agreed that whatever we do, we should hurry up and get it done. I remember seeing a segment on TV, I can't remember which channel, but the anchor was interviewing a representative of a families-and-survivors group, as well as a member of Al Qaeda. Both agreed that it's shameful how long it's taken to rebuild Ground Zero.
I also hate the idea of leaving just the footprint. As romantic and beautiful as that sounds, the WTC plaza is huge, and with property in Manhattan at such a premium, I think it's a shame to put it off-limits forever.
I also wonder why it has to be only office space. Why not have residential, office, and green space there, with people living in in it 24/7, to show that even though we were hurt, we are resilient and can move on? I think that's a far better memorial to the people who died.
I, too, disagree with the idea that the site be left empty. That's akin to giving murderous suicidal loons the final word on urban design.
I side with Cool Cal. All the bureaucratitis that has infected the reconstruction is a shameful embarrassment.
Ultimately, if I ask myself what I'd want people to do if I were killed in a similar murderous mass-casualty attack, I'd say, Rebuild and let the nuts know that they don't have the last say over how we plan and organize our part of the world, dammit!
The answer to "Why not . . . " is "because no one wants to." No one wants to live there. No one wants to work there. No one wants to buy a cup of coffee there. You can put buildings there, but they will lose a ton of money, and almost certainly end up as government office buildings--which is what the Port Authority had to do with the original towers for the first twenty years of their existence.
I'd rather have a park than a DMV.
"..there are green spaces and low rise in the surrounding area that could be bought with eminent domain and built up." --MM
Why did you even bother with the "2X4"-apology?
Way to be pro-Kehlo, Wonders, may they never cease..
Part of why nobody wanted to work or live in the original WTC is that they were, in a word, hideous. Big boring boxes. Perfectly suited for government offices but not for anyone with a sense of style.
The new buildings might do just fine if they weren't behind schedule and over budget.
I wonder how much things are being slowed down by the ludicrous level of security that now surrounds the WTC. If we fired all the extra guards around the WTC, the stock exchange, and various nearby government buildings, removed the anti-car-bomb barriers and extra police and just generally scaled things back to treat development in that area like any normal construction project, how much difference would that make? Sure, it'd still be New York City, but...
Ron Rosenbaum had an informative post mentioning what you do that 'no one wants to be there and be a target.' It is in it's way in a war zone and that is why stalemate, for now, may be appropriate. One wants to protect vulnerable populations. In that context though the statement of Austin Goolsbee's Senator:
defines the vulnerable population here in a little bit of an airy fairy way.Megan,
When you say no one wants to live or work there, are you asserting that all other things being equal, they'd rather live/work in some other Manhattan location (or even some location outside civilization) or that no one will live/work there even if space there is significantly cheaper than the downtown norm?
Also, do you believe this aversion exists only if the buildings that go up there are extremely tall (and thus tempting to terrorists) or do you believe that would be true of a collection of 40-60 story buildings?
I strongly, strongly, strongly disagree.
NYC's commercial real estate market went from slightly soft in 2002 to super hot, and now back down to somewhere between red and white hot.
NYC needs more office space. Many banks and funds literally ran out of space in 2006/2007. The pressure eased only slightly since then. Lack of space will constrain future growth when the industry rebounds.
Silverstein paid to lease skyscrapers. The insurance companies reimbursed him for missing skyscrapers. He wants to build new skyscapers.
Government should get out of the way. Port Authority should get completely out of the commercial landlord business. All agencies should let Silverstein build what's been taken. He will CHOOSE to build a big friggin' memorial.
Governmental gridlock on the site is the biggest tragedy of the WTC since the recovery was completed.
We're all entitled to an OPINION, but that's it. Libertarians should be FUMING that government is making life so hard for a private citizen trying to exercize his rights to his own property.
Megan,
You're a smart girl. Here's a question for you? When did we start building memorials to VICTIMS? (ans: Oklahoma City). Why? If you've ever traveled around this country you would have passed tens of thousands of monuments and memorials built by our citizenry to honor our HEROS -- not the poor sob's who happend to be in harm's way. You want to see a memorial at the WTC site? Fine, put one up for the brave police and firemen who gave their lives trying to do their jobs -- helping the poor souls who were trapped in those doomed buildings.
Why on earth should we consecrate the footprints of those buildings?
The proper monument for a victim? A headstone. How to express your grief over the loss of a loved one? In private.
How should we respond to 9/11? Exactly as our president has led us -- take the fight to our enemies and render them unable to do us harm -- just as FDR did in response to Pearl Harbor.
Have you been to Hawaii? There's a memorial there. It's a superstructure over the hull of the USS Arizona. It honors the brave sailors and marines who were doing their jobs defending us. There's no "footprint" honoring civilian deaths.
This whole thing is absurd!
As far as I know, disrupting Union agriculture was not among the goals of the Confederacy.
Marginally reducing the amount of office space in Manhattan was not among the goals of Al Qaeda, either.
A better metaphor would be the USS Arizona. Did we respond to its sinking by building an even bigger battleship named "USS Arizona"? No, because we recognized that giant battleships were as obsolete and irrelevant as giant Manhattan skyscrapers are today. Instead, we left the wreckage on the seabed of Pearl Harbor, as a reminder to all of the attack on America.
Megan, as a current Tribeca resident I have to tell you that I would be more than happy to live in a modestly discounted apartment on the WTC site. Housing and rental prices in New York being what they are, I doubt very much that I'm alone.
That it's hard to fill massive office buildings in a town that doesn't need office space hardly implies that it would be hard to fill normal-sized discounted housing in a town where people will knife you for a nice one-bedroom under $2000 a month.
Whether that's the most appropriate use of the space is a seperate question, of course.
You do not want to live in an apartment in the WTC that goes at the market rate, and no one wants to build at below market rates. Again, we're back to the fact that for anyone to use the space, the government is going to have to pay them to do it.
Did we respond to its sinking by building an even bigger battleship named "USS Arizona"?
we built even bigger battleships named the uss iowa, uss north carolina, uss wiscosin and uss misouri, the last of which is currently right next to the arizona.
and we left the wreckage of the arizona (and the utah, and several others) because it was a total loss, and not worth it; the wrecks that were recoverable (even where people died) we raised, repaired and put back into action.
The most heroic gesture the city of New York could have done after 9/11 would have been to start finally building the 2nd Ave. subway.
The problem is that no other project elicits so many commercial, economic, nationalistic, security and personal emotional responses as this project.
Unlike any other project, there is already a high chance this would become target #1 for terrorists of some sort. And if you want to see these new buildings turned into an empty, money losing pit, all it would take is another 1993 bombing and the new WTC would be abandoned enforce by the tenants (if they can attract any).
In addition, unlike almost any other building project, the new WTC, is going to be criticized for its appearance by 300 million Americans. Unlike some building projects, which some citizens may disagree with, at the end of the day, most people are not emotionally involved in that structure. So the fact this is 7 years post-9/11 is not really a bad thing. Lets take the time to let our emotions fade, and hopefully, the most rationale, and appropriate decision will be made.
However, I think Megan's claim of eminent domain for large investment banking needs is a bit sadistic and plutocratic. But then again, that is really the nature of most libertarians.
The sad fact of New York City is that its raft of bizarre regulations make it impossible to assemble any significant plot without eminent domain--it's no surprise that most of the sizeable developments currently being built are on old government land like the west side rail yards. Eminent domain in New York is not a matter of kicking old ladies out of their houses--it's a matter of sidestepping lawsuits by recalcitrant tentants or nuthatch "community activists" who can tie up a sale for years. We're talking about small commercial buildings and city parks, not residential units--slap a 20% premium on the well-estabished market rate on the buildings and you won't have any owners fighting you.
Of course, I would rather not have the ridiculous regulations in the first place. But as long as they are there, the only way any sizeable development is going to happen in New York is with eminent domain. Am I a bad libertarian? We report, you decide.
Megan's comment that no one will want to be a tenant is simply silly. Try this. Auction off the land with the agreement that the buyer gets to build basically whatever he wants there. Are you telling me the price will be zero because all the land is good for is to be a public park, which no one can make money on? Not in a million years. If real estate developers forecast they will make the most money with office space, they will build office space. If they forecast better profits from residential they will build residential. Likewise for mixed use. But no way the auction doesn't go for big bucks (which implies the developers forecast paying tenants) just as long there is an agreement that the various governments can't hold up development any more than any other NYC piece of land, other than to require the placement of a small memorial plaque somewhere. If they had done this 6 years ago, the buildings would have been finished four years ago.
The thing is that it seems the "Freedom Tower" was designed to be a giant "F**k you, terrorists" by being stupidly tall (1776 feet). But it is not even going to be the tallest building in the country when completed (there will be a bigger one in Chicago) so it takes the whole jingoistic aspect out of it. They should make it 1776 YARDS tall.
The thing is that it seems the "Freedom Tower" was designed to be a giant "F**k you, terrorists" by being stupidly tall
I thought the five-tower design was supposed to be that.
There are, of course, alternatives.
"original Daniel Kahneman design"
Isn't it Daniel Libeskind? Not that I know anything about architecture.
Yes, sorry, my brain has been invaded by the terrorists.
The funny thing is that a lot of people HATED the original towers. The joke was that they were the boxes that the Empire State and Chrysler buildings came in. In our revisionist history we've forgotten that.
I used to live just blocks from the WTC and I'd shop at the Century 21 store near there. I always remember that store being so dismal and dark because it was perpetually in the shadows of the towers.
I went back there after 9/11 and what struck me the most was how sunny the area felt. I liked that feeling, then I felt very guilty for that feeling.
Anyway, I like the park idea. Keep it sunny and open I say.
Regarding the comment about there being a bigger tower in Chicago...they both will be shorter than the Burj Dubai in the middle east currently under construction (but is already at 2,087 ft).
Megan I think you are making perfect sense. freddiemac is right it is interesting to hear New Yorkers on the WTC. In my experience it is much more rational.
I hold the opinion, which does not seem to be uncommon, that neither the original towers nor the struggling Freedom Tower were attractive buildings and that the latter is an exemplar of the kind of crass, chintzy patriotism that is among the less directly deleterious, but most obnoxious consequences of the attacks of September 11th, 2001. If I had my way someone would build big, although not record-setting, beautiful skyscrapers in the style of 1 Times Square before it was turned into a sheer marble spike and then an advertising tower, one with ornaments and old fashioned aesthetics. I suppose my own desire for the site is, summarily, to build a big, extended middle finger that flips both terrorists and modern architects off; I hate both, but not equally, or for the same reasons.
Of course, I would rather not have the ridiculous regulations in the first place. But as long as they are there, the only way any sizeable development is going to happen in New York is with eminent domain. Am I a bad libertarian? We report, you decide. - Megan
I definitely lack status to comment on whether Megan is a bad libertarian, but I think the issue of "ridiculous regulations" in NYC is too easy a gloss on what is really, ultimately, the horrible horny issue of democracy vs. development in all its excruciating impossibility. The shadows cast by skyscrapers really are a negative externality. Ditto with congestion caused by high-rise development. As it happens I like skyscrapers and I like high-density development, but you do have to make some accommodation to the right of people who live in a place to influence what happens to that place in a democratic fashion.
I really, really wish there were more innovative modern architecture and urban development going on in NYC. I really, really, really wish there were a goddamn train direct from Grand Central to JFK, already. But the reasons why there aren't these things have a lot to do with democracy and community control. In Shanghai and Beijing, they can build giant things very, very fast. 'Nuff said.
To clarify: I think the pendulum in NYC has swung much too far towards the community-control and regulatory side of things, and it's bringing the city to a standstill. But I do think it's a pendulum, and you wouldn't solve the problem by just dragging the pendulum all the way to the opposite side and trying to hold it there. I don't think it's a problem that can be solved; it's a balance that has to be struck.
Interesting hypothesis with the pendulum. Is there any evidence for the community regulations pendulum swinging back? When it comes to zoning and building codes, it seems more like a slippery slope to me.
A modest proposal:
Re-build on-site. Make the buildings taller than the previous ones. Move the UN and all of the embassies in to the top floors of each building. Convert the current UN to luxury apartments.
I found your assertion that people wouldn't want to live there self-evidently wrong, but I've heard you don't much care for that as an argument, so I canvassed a couple dozen friends about whether they'd live on a redeveloped Ground Zero at market rate. All of them said they happily would.
That said, the redevelopment of such a large site would probably push down market rates, if not across Manhattan, then certainly from SoHo down. The attacks destroyed 12 million square feet of space. The best redevelopment plan I've ever seen -- the brilliant one City Journal advocated right after the attacks -- would restore about 18 million square feet. Presumably (given Manhattan's shortage of housing and surplus of office) most of that would be apartments.
If you figure that each person gets about 1,000 feet of housing, you could get 18,000 people in there, which would just about even out the office/apartment imbalance downtown. Also, given that we'd be talking 2 percent of all the housing in Manhattan, it could put some downward pressure on housing everywhere, which would be nice.
But even without cost savings, I'd be happy to live on Ground Zero, as would everyone else I talked to, and I'd rush to live in any area developed along the City Journal lines. It's a great plan that could easily be done by now.
Typo of the week:
the horrible horny issue of democracy vs. development
Whatever turns you on, as the man said.
(That was also the most sensible post on the thread so far.)
Nylund: "Regarding the comment about there being a bigger tower in Chicago...they both will be shorter than the Burj Dubai in the middle east currently under construction (but is already at 2,087 ft)."
Yes, but the Burj is no doubt built to international standards in meters. Everyone knows the foot is trading at historic lows against the meter because of the Fed, but once the situation improves in a few years, the Burj will be shorter ;-)
Unfortunately, any project that Daniel Libeskind gets involved in becomes embroiled in controversy as people struggle to deal with that architect's tantrums and whims. Then they go way over budget and then they leak.
That's probably why Libeskind's own wife Nina hired another architect to do their family apartment in Manhattan.
"the only way any sizeable development is going to happen in New York is with eminent domain. Am I a bad libertarian? We report, you decide."
Megan,
Stop kidding us, noone really cares if you're a 'bad libertarian'. The question was revolving around you, and why you choose to revel in the force of the State.
You continue to ascribe to and promote a factset that, with the faintest of Research is provably False, is deleterious to any sense that would sustain Logic, let alone Liberty.
"the only way any sizeable development is going to happen in New York is with eminent domain. Am I a bad libertarian? We report, you decide."
Megan,
Stop kidding us, noone really cares if you're a 'bad libertarian'. The question was revolving around you, and why you choose to revel in the force of the State.
You continue to ascribe to and promote a factset that, with the faintest of Research is provably False, is deleterious to any sense that would sustain Logic, let alone Liberty.
sorry for the 2X post, now I know how that happens..
---I really, really wish there were more innovative modern architecture and urban development going on in NYC. I really, really, really wish there were a goddamn train direct from Grand Central to JFK, already. But the reasons why there aren't these things have a lot to do with democracy and community control. In Shanghai and Beijing, they can build giant things very, very fast. 'Nuff said.---
So they can in London. It's still quite democratic, the last time I checked. Only in NYC it got to the point where the unions and (separately) every nutjob can easily destroy any good idea that city planners, developers, city governments, or anybody else may have. Good luck to 2nd Ave line or Grand Central-JFK connection...
"Beggering for handouts is not a sign of "our" times. The difference between, say, the '80s and today is the brazen way it is done. There seems to be a sense of entitlement among the monied interests that make them believe the average American is ripe for financial assault and robbery any time.
Mind you they have been absolutely correct thus far. Aided by a fantastic socio-political propaganda machine (think tanks, Institutes and foundations and paid shills benefiting from the wingnut welfare) that fostered a false sense of self-reliance (quite an irony in an era of globalization and interdependence) glorification of the corporation (the bigger the better) and systematic tilting of the laws and regulations favoring the wealthy and well-connected (read Free Lunch Perfectly Legal and Gotcha Capitalism for starters) while shifting the total tax burden to the middle class, we have lost the true meaning of capitalism. It has been replaced by crony capitalism pure and simple. The ideological idiocy your alluded to in an earlier post is strictly the supporting pseudo-ethos, the meta-message used by their propaganda machine to stifle common sensical debate...WTF am I writing? to stifle ANY debate!
So, here we are today, exhibiting several disturbing symptoms of a Banana Republic.
Not a pretty picture, but we can get out of this predicament. It won't be easy tough, because the enemy is...us."
Posted by: Francois | Jul 18, 2008 10:43:36 AM
http://bigpicture.typepad.com/comments/2008/07/a-nation-of-whi.html#comments
---I really, really wish there were more innovative modern architecture and urban development going on in NYC. I really, really, really wish there were a goddamn train direct from Grand Central to JFK, already. But the reasons why there aren't these things have a lot to do with democracy and community control. In Shanghai and Beijing, they can build giant things very, very fast. 'Nuff said.---
So they can in London. It's still quite democratic, the last time I checked. Only in NYC it got to the point where the unions and (separately) every nutjob can easily destroy any good idea that city planners, developers, city governments, or anybody else may have. Good luck to 2nd Ave line or Grand Central-JFK connection...