If by "symbol" you mean target...?
In a CNN story yesterday, New York's Governor Pataki stated "Today, we lay the cornerstone for a new symbol of this city and this country and of our resolve in the face of terror."
Do they really want to erect an even bigger target?
I'm not trying to knock the Big Apple. I was born there, not five miles from where the World Trade Center's twin towers once stood. I watched helplessly as the North Tower burned, only to witness a second jet plane slam into the South Tower.
I was happy to hear that a magnificent memorial and park was to be erected on the spot, rather than a new skyscraper. But, of course, grander ideas took hold. And now we have the Freedom Tower.
It makes me shudder.
Not that I would wish any bad fortune on the owners of this new obelisk (-- I assume it will be Larry Silverstein, who reaped a 3.5 billion dollar insurance award for the World Trade Center catastrophe --). But would you go to work in a 1,776 foot tower that was built on the site of the World Trade Center? I wouldn't. Not for any amount of money. And I'd be surprised if Mr. Silverstein would have an office much higher than the 6th floor.
My prediction is that the Freedom Tower will suffer from low occupancy and high insurance premiums. Not just for the building, but for every single person who works in that building. Employees who are forced to relocate to the building will sue their companies for stress-related illnesses and injuries. The building will eventually become a cash drain and Silverstein (or his heirs) will run screaming to City Hall for subsidies to keep the Freedom Tower from becoming an abandoned shell.
You heard it here first, and you can quote me.
Do they really want to erect an even bigger target?
I'm not trying to knock the Big Apple. I was born there, not five miles from where the World Trade Center's twin towers once stood. I watched helplessly as the North Tower burned, only to witness a second jet plane slam into the South Tower.
I was happy to hear that a magnificent memorial and park was to be erected on the spot, rather than a new skyscraper. But, of course, grander ideas took hold. And now we have the Freedom Tower.
It makes me shudder.
Not that I would wish any bad fortune on the owners of this new obelisk (-- I assume it will be Larry Silverstein, who reaped a 3.5 billion dollar insurance award for the World Trade Center catastrophe --). But would you go to work in a 1,776 foot tower that was built on the site of the World Trade Center? I wouldn't. Not for any amount of money. And I'd be surprised if Mr. Silverstein would have an office much higher than the 6th floor.
My prediction is that the Freedom Tower will suffer from low occupancy and high insurance premiums. Not just for the building, but for every single person who works in that building. Employees who are forced to relocate to the building will sue their companies for stress-related illnesses and injuries. The building will eventually become a cash drain and Silverstein (or his heirs) will run screaming to City Hall for subsidies to keep the Freedom Tower from becoming an abandoned shell.
You heard it here first, and you can quote me.
2 Comments:
Hello there - I just stumbled across your blog if you don't mind.
I think I have to disagree, though with this; don't you think the US govt. will have learned its lesson, and if terrorists were to attack, wouldn't they equally wish to attack some other high-profile building such as the Empire State Building etc.?
I must agree, you wouldn't be able to pay me any sum of money to get me to work in the building, but isn't any skyscraper as susceptible to attack, regardless of where it is?
It's been a while since I thought of this, but I'll never forget it.
I don't think the US government ever learns lessons. Not collectively, anyway. An occasional law is passed to help remind us and steer us, but our government keeps tripping over itself. Having said that, I should add that I love this country, even with its flaws, as I love my own children.
I don't think the Empire State Bldg was ever as vulnerable because it never achieved the status of being the seat of world capitalism. The very name "World Trade Center" painted a big red bull's eye on the Twin Towers. It's own capitalistic decadence, to some degree, was its own undoing. But whom do you blame but the developers who were marketing that piece of real estate to its eventual tenants.
I don't want to suggest a better target because, heck, terrorists read this stuff too, you know. But certain places are sure to pop out in ones mind if one thinks about it.
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