the Freedom Tower: redesigned

The New York Times reports today about the proposed redesign of the "Freedom Tower" to be built at the former site of the World Trade Center buildings in New York.

It is very much worth checking out the slide-show of photographs and plans included at the link. This is what, in 2011, the replacement for the World Trade Center buildings will look like.

I've written about 9/11 before....in 2005 here and, from 2004, here. You can tell from those pieces that I'm convinced that we haven't even begun to deal with nine eleven as a nation.

It's something significant, building on the site of Ground Zero. Significant as a stand alone act and significant for what kind of building and memorial we choose to place there. In my mind, the debate and delay that has plagued the project, the snail's pace at which it has proceeded...serves as a kind of stand-in for the missing national dialogue about 9/11.

We haven't really talked about "nine eleven" in a real and meaningful way as a nation. We haven't added up the sum of what we've lost...nor have we come to terms with its cost.

2011 is a long way off. As the years that separate us from 9 / 11 / 2001 increase....it's clear that we are not even close to a midway point, either in dealing with our grief, or in thinking, long and hard, with careful self-reflection, about what 9/11 means for America.

Comments

Anonymous said…
As a New Yorker, I don't think we've been allowed to have a meaningful conversation on 9/11 because it's been exclusively wielded for political purposes. Once we can put aside the partisan rancor around the event, then we can begin to heal - not only the city, but a nation as a whole.

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