BS: Rebuilding Ground Zero

Subject: BS: Rebuilding Ground Zero
From: Murray MacLeod
Date: 09 Sep 03 - 07:41 PM

I have just finished watching one of the most fascinating documentaries I have ever seen , about the rebuilding of Ground Zero.

I just wondered if it would be possible to gauge, through the medium of Mudcat, what the majority feeling in the US is regarding the redevelopment of the site. Obviously opinions are going to be polarized, ranging from those who want maximum commercial development on the one hand , to those who want a total shrine on the other. Obviously the end result is going to lie somewhere between these extremes.

It did seem to me, going by the information provided by the ddocumentary, that the architect in charge of design, Daniel Libeskind, has succeeded so far in doing an unimaginably difficult task with flair, imagination and compassion.

I did wonder about the wisdom of incorporating yet another
"world's tallest building" in the plans, but I do understand the political aspect of the decision.

I would be fascinated to know the views and opinions of the US Mudcatters regarding the project.

Murray

Subject: RE: BS: Rebuilding Ground Zero
From: artbrooks
Date: 09 Sep 03 - 07:54 PM

Park. Symbolism aside, New York doesn't have anywhere enough green space.

Subject: RE: BS: Rebuilding Ground Zero
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 09 Sep 03 - 08:17 PM

I always thought "Ground Zero" was in Hiroshima, or Nagasaki...

Subject: RE: BS: Rebuilding Ground Zero
From: Amos
Date: 09 Sep 03 - 08:45 PM

It was, Clinton, but they moved it...

A

Subject: RE: BS: Rebuilding Ground Zero
From: GUEST,pdq
Date: 09 Sep 03 - 09:53 PM

I will not win many friends with this, but I considered the Twin Towers to be the ugliest building(s) in the world and a tribute to wretched excess. I do not miss them and believe that 30 stories should be the limit for any new building, with the standards set in Washington (federal). Make a park.

Subject: RE: BS: Rebuilding Ground Zero
From: Ebbie
Date: 09 Sep 03 - 10:34 PM

Guest/pdq, the documentary I watched last night tended to make a believer out of me too. I had no idea that its design and height had been so controversial. And it appears that the rent after it was built was a good deal cheaper than surrounding properties because it was so unpopular.

Subject: RE: BS: Rebuilding Ground Zero
From: mg
Date: 09 Sep 03 - 11:27 PM

I think it is stupid to want to build it as high or higher. Have some green space and a fairly ordinary building or group of buildings..maybe health clinics or something...Have some shrine-like elements and some commercial space and some public utility space and some park space. mg

Subject: RE: BS: Rebuilding Ground Zero
From: Donuel
Date: 09 Sep 03 - 11:57 PM

If you were from NYC you would know what is on the site right now. There is a huge billboard with a mural and poem in tribute to the spirit of patriotism after 911.

A small portion of it is visible in this pic.

http://www.angelfire.com/md2/customviolins/sexcity.jpg

Subject: RE: BS: Rebuilding Ground Zero
From: Bill D
Date: 10 Sep 03 - 11:33 AM

the entire issue is so clouded with tears and $ signs that they will never work out a satisfactory solution....the $ signs will win, and whatever they build will become a new target.

Subject: RE: BS: Rebuilding Ground Zero
From: Peg
Date: 10 Sep 03 - 11:34 AM

Plant trees. 3000 of them. The photographer who was alowed access soon after the disaster suggested the same and took it a step further: have the trees represent the nationalities of those who died. English elm, Japanese maple, Swedish fir, etc.

Subject: RE: BS: Rebuilding Ground Zero
From: nutty
Date: 11 Sep 03 - 03:46 AM

Listening, on TV this morning, to the bereaved who have not been able to hold a funeral as the bodies of their loved ones have still not been found, it would seem criminal if this site was develpoed for commercial purposes.

Subject: RE: BS: Rebuilding Ground Zero
From: Greg F.
Date: 11 Sep 03 - 07:26 AM

The obvious spot to build the world's largest WalMart.

Subject: RE: BS: Rebuilding Ground Zero
From: vectis
Date: 11 Sep 03 - 07:28 PM

IMHO this piece of real estate should be treated as a mass grave and never built on. It should be a permanent reminder of how vulnerable we all are against a determined attacker.
I like the idea of the 3000 trees.
I'm not American but a lot of English people were in the buildings that day.

Subject: RE: BS: Rebuilding Ground Zero
From: kendall
Date: 11 Sep 03 - 07:35 PM

On one hand there is the grave site thing ( I can't imagine anyone building a commercial building on top of the ARIZONA at Pearl Harbor, but on the other hand, another building would show our defiance.
Anyway, considering the value of NY city property, the $ signs will probably win.
Personally, Donald Trump couldn't pay me enough to work in a high rise in NYC or anywhere else after that disaster.

Subject: RE: BS: Rebuilding Ground Zero
From: M.Ted
Date: 12 Sep 03 - 03:51 PM

The spot isn't big enough to build the world's largest Walmart, at least if you were going to have a parking lot(it is only 17 acres)--furthermore, the idea about planting trees is equally unpractical, since it is a six or eight story deep hole which would have to be filled in with soil if any sort of park were to be created.

As to what people think, it is hard to say--I think a lot of people would like to have the skyline restored, so that you don't get that awful sense that something is missing when you look at Manhattan--there are lots of different groups who express strong opinions of one sort or another, band, while they are trying to affect public opinion, none of them reflect public opinion--

Of course people who actually live on Manhattan for the most part couldn't see the WTC and can't see the empty space anyway--The "footprint" looks like just another easy to overlook urban construction site unless you approach it from the side that has all the flowers, memorial stuff, etc, and, especially given the looming presence it has in our minds, that side is relatively hard to find.

The most striking thing is that if you didn't know the WTC was once there, you wouldn't have any sense that anything was missing--

Subject: RE: BS: Rebuilding Ground Zero
From: Greg F.
Date: 12 Sep 03 - 06:42 PM

All right,if WalMart won't work, then, maybe the world's largest gasoline station would be more apt?

Subject: RE: BS: Rebuilding Ground Zero
From: Bobert
Date: 12 Sep 03 - 07:13 PM

I would like to see the space used to accomodate just about everyones wishes. Building don't have to have ground floors, or even 2nd floors. If it were to be designed with it's four corners carrying the laod and with an atrium it could be a park, a tribute and a building.

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Rebuilding Ground Zero
From: GUEST
Date: 13 Sep 03 - 06:35 AM

Hello all, I have been very interested in all of your comments and think everyone has a valid point of view, however I cannot shake the conviction that any decision as to what is done to the site should be left to the berieved and survivors of that abominable atrocity. They should be given the final say as to whether it should be respected as a final resting place for their friends and loved ones or whether , as has been suggested, it should rise again from the ashes. But I fear that in the cold light of day the mighty dollar shall take precidence over the broken hearts of the people affected. Who knows, maybe the powers that be have learned something?

Subject: RE: BS: Rebuilding Ground Zero
From: GUEST,pdq
Date: 13 Sep 03 - 06:51 PM

Making the site into a park does not have to include trees which are planted in the ground. The last time I went to the Oakland Museum it had a very well conceived roof garden.

Subject: RE: BS: Rebuilding Ground Zero
From: Rapparee
Date: 13 Sep 03 - 07:40 PM

Building underground, park above. Use public transportation to get to work, delivery access can be worked out.

How much office space in Manhattan is vacant right now, anyway? And really, how much do we need?

I think we should decentralize a LOT of stuff, including the US government.

Subject: RE: BS: Rebuilding Ground Zero
From: GUEST,pdq
Date: 13 Sep 03 - 08:46 PM

Crime and violence are inversely related to population density. Less density in the ol' Big Apple certainly won't hurt.

Subject: RE: BS: Rebuilding Ground Zero
From: M.Ted
Date: 14 Sep 03 - 11:50 PM

Manhattan office space currently is about 11.5% vacant, apparently it had been higher earlier this year--at the beginning of 2001, it was at a level of about 7.5%--after 9/11, when 13 million square feet of office space were destroyed, it was anticipated that there would be a shortage of space, but a lot of the displaced offices relocated in smaller facilities, so they ended up occupying only about 48% of the space that they had, pre-9/11-at the same time, there was a general move among Wall Street brokerages to eliminated redundant space, which added about 10 million square feet of space to the available pool. Apparently, only about 5.4 million square feet of this space was picked up, resulting, at the end of 2001, in about at 14% vacancy rate in South Manhattan--

Isn't it amazing what you can find out, in only a few minutes on the internet?

Subject: RE: BS: Rebuilding Ground Zero
From: kendall
Date: 15 Sep 03 - 08:33 AM

The library at Alexandria had nothing on the internet

Subject: RE: BS: Rebuilding Ground Zero
From: danensis
Date: 15 Sep 03 - 11:18 AM

I thought Ground Zero was in Hiroshima?

Subject: RE: BS: Rebuilding Ground Zero
From: nutty
Date: 15 Sep 03 - 12:24 PM

Hiroshima was just the example that others learned to live by.
"forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us"