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corysub -> RE: Lower Manhattan (9/10/2008 6:55:28 PM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Mercnbeth
I trust that its possible to bring another subject to this section; some may even welcome it.
Tomorrow marks the passing of another year from the day that was the demarcation point in my life. Those that know me personally know of what I speak. But this isn't about me. It's about my anger and frustration of what is occurring at the site I formally called my home office. After seven years all that's there is a hole. It is a national embarrassment. Go ahead, pick a political party, or agenda based advocates - ALL are responsible. Blame is for children and rear view mirror viewers. The bottom line is seven years later, there is still a hole where my office used to be.
After the attack I remember the advocacy and determination that existed among us to rebuild taller, higher, more elaborate. There was a desire to use the event not as a point of failure but as a rallying point for a lower Manhattan Renaissance. There was worry today about the Hadron Collider producing a 'black hole'. There's been one in NYC for seven years. A black hole of mismanagement, ego, guilt, political correctness; basically a black hole of many of the same things wrong with the USA in general right there to be seen by everyone in the world. Building have gone up in half the time taller, bigger, more expansive than anything planned for the 'Freedom Tower' in the time since 9/11. However here in the USA, fear keeps us from making any progress. Fear produced by guilt, fear produced by political correctness, fear produced wondering what others in the world will think if we dare to once again try to have the tallest, the biggest, and be the best; which used to be our country's mission statement while I was growing up. However that is now not the case. I'm not even sure it's an acceptable sentiment to aspire. As a result in lower Manhattan there is still a hole where my office used to be.
Tomorrow there will be much gnashing of teeth and wailing. I didn't want to commemorate that day. I prefer to commemorate the day before when I was planning on being at the office at 8:30 until later that night when my partner decided to take the early meeting and recommended I meet him instead at 11:00. Two and a half hours made for a big difference in my life. Meanwhile some rationalization for the hole where my office used to be...
quote:
On the eve of the seventh anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, Mayor Bloomberg Wednesday called for a city takeover of Ground Zero construction.
"Progress on the redevelopment of the World Trade Center has been frustratingly slow, owing in large part to a multi-layered governance structure that has undermined accountability from the get-go," Bloomberg wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed piece. Source: http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2008/09/10/2008-09-10_mayor_bloomberg_asks_for_lmdc_to_be_dism.html
Seven years later here's the view of my office today: http://www.earthcam.com/usa/newyork/groundzero/
I don't go back to New York if I can help it.
My company was in the South Tower with a number of floors. Management was there in the early 1990's when terrorists tried to take down the towers with bombs and failed. It took about three hours to evacuate down those narrow stairwells. When people started jumping from the North Tower my company evacuated, notwithstanding the Port Authority announcements that "all was well in the South Tower". Sadly we lost six people, some security people who stayed behind and a few who did not want to make the trek down. My secretary lost her husband, a friend lost his son, and we lost the thirty year old child of a neighbor who called her mother to say goodbye before joining the other girls.
It was the most emotional day in my life. Every emotion from fear to estreme anger and looking for vengence against the perpetrators of such an outrage and killing of innocent people raced through me. Walking across the 59th Street bridge after it reopened to pedistrian traffic it was ironic to see passerby's giving a muslim woman in full neck to foot dress on that hot afternoon water and helping her when she felt feint. Amazing people Americans. People from the factories in Queens lined the streets with bottles of water for the refugees from Manhattan. There were no black, white, yellow, brown, republicans or democrats that day...only an extended family of Americans. God I was so proud to be an American in that day of disaster.
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