One World Trade Center

[Guest EXPAT]

So as of last Monday, the new One World Trade Center became the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere when they added the next two beams on the top section.

Jane Fonda tweeted the following picture when she was in NYC this week. Have you seen the new building yet in person?

[Guest EXPAT]

Here is the artist rendering of the final product. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_World_Trade_Center

[Guest Ace]

WOW! AS an ex New Yorker who experienced the 911 tragedy first hand, I'm not sure what i feel about his first viewing for me. I DO know that I will be visiting it when I get to NY in a few weeks.

Thanks for sharing!

[caeron]

A bit of synchronicity. I was cleaning out my computer files and found this which I wrote a few years after 9/11. My younger brother worked in the towers at the time and was late to work that day. My older brother worked at the pentagon, but fortunately was elsewhere that day. I'm sure others here were even closer to the tragedy.

************

Today, I made the pilgrimage to ground zero. I really should have been doing other things, but I had to go. I can’t say exactly why. So I blew off some work I ought to have been doing, and boarded a downtown train. The train and the station were remarkably clean. The conductor’s announcements, however, were as incomprehensible as ever, sounding like a voice run through a chainsaw. The man next to me met my eyes and laughed. “These are the new trains, too,” he said. This didn’t feel like the city I remembered.

I don’t know lower Manhattan particularly well, though you couldn’t get lost walking from the station. There was steady stream of people heading south, following a few signs.

The site itself is deceptive. Like nothing more than a construction zone. Even a crane sat there idle. I wept.

I didn’t feel American so much as I felt human. Touched by the abiding loss that each of us must face in our own lives. The air around me felt thick. Thick with the choked sobs of grief, and the unheard whispers of ghosts. I wanted to tell the ghosts, “I know. I know,” but I didn’t really. The best I could do was to stand there with them for a moment, companionship separated by an infinite void.

It reminded me of Dachau. Years ago, driving across Germany we saw the exit sign for Dachau, one of the first of the concentration camps. My parents did not want to stop, but I insisted. Like Ground Zero, what you saw was unimpressive. Grey buildings against a grey sky. But you could feel the ground groan and weep under the burden of the blood and tears that had been spilled upon it. A wrongness seeped from the stones of the place making you want to scream and tear your hair. Anything to somehow break the relentless pressure of it. But you know nothing can change what was, so you let your tears mix with all the others that have come before, and hope that your grief and tears might wear away a small piece of the cruelty that was done there.

It was like that as I walked around St. Paul’s looking at all the offerings to the dead that had been left. The kindergarten class letters. The note from a mother to her son. A daughter to her father. A wife to her husband. A picture with no words.

And I thought of Anne Frank who said, “..because I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are truly good at heart.”

I think so too, Anne. I think so, too.

[RA1]

Caeron-

I did not "enjoy" your post but identified with the sentiments and facts contained therein. Thanks.

Frankly, I did not enjoy the reference to Hanoi Jane regarding the Tower. She can retire from public life and leave the rest of us alone as far as I am concerned.

Again, thanks Caeron.

Best regards,

RA1

[Guest EXPAT]

Frankly, I did not enjoy the reference to Hanoi Jane regarding the Tower. She can retire from public life and leave the rest of us alone as far as I am concerned.

Re: Jane Fonda

this opinion of her (mostly from right wingers) just slays me.

http://open.salon.com/blog/an_american_who_happens_to_be_gay/2011/07/18/we_still_hate_jane_fonda_seriously

[RA1]

Expat-

Thanks for your reply. HJ may have been correct about her resistance to the VN conflict but she did little for the US attidtude about same. Unfortunately, I have too many friends who served in VN and cannot forgive her for her input. She approved of an enemy of the US and therefore deserves my scorn evermore.

I am willing to forgive and forget but, AFTER she is dead and gone.

Best regards,

RA1

[Guest lurkerspeaks]

I have never been to NYC or the World Trade Center.. The closest thing I can relate it to is years ago when I saw the touring version of the AIDS quilt. I remember walking around the Houston Convention Center where it was held, full of sadness, with tears flowing.

That being said, I personally am left feeling kinda nervous with this new building. To me, a smaller, less "showy" building would be a better statement. This is almost like we are ASKING for something bad to happen again..

[Lucky]

Last week I stayed at a hotel near the 9/11 Memorial. There were often long lines to get in, but at other times the lines were short. hard to figure- maybe tour groups?

But, One World trade Center looks great. At night, when the construction is harder to see and the building shape clear, it is quite a beautiful structure. Although it is too bad that it took so long to get the building up, it is going to be ultimately a credit to New York, and the 9/11 Memorial a fitting tribute to those who lost their lives.

[caeron]

I remember seeing the AIDS quilt on the Washington DC mall one of the last times I think the whole thing was displayed before it got too large. The quilt itself made me sad, but the thing that mad me weep uncontrollably was the reading of the names. They just went on and on and on. A whole generation of us wiped out.

[Guest EXPAT]

I remember seeing the AIDS quilt on the Washington DC mall one of the last times I think the whole thing was displayed before it got too large. The quilt itself made me sad, but the thing that mad me weep uncontrollably was the reading of the names. They just went on and on and on. A whole generation of us wiped out.

I also saw the quilt on the mall in Washington DC during the March on Washington in 1993 and the shocking thing was that the first quilt tile we saw had my name on it. It had a shocking impact on me. Obviously it was someone else who shared my name, but it was still shocking that it was my exact name, same spelling and everything. I'll never forget that.

[RA1]

Last week I stayed at a hotel near the 9/11 Memorial. There were often long lines to get in, but at other times the lines were short. hard to figure- maybe tour groups?

But, One World trade Center looks great. At night, when the construction is harder to see and the building shape clear, it is quite a beautiful structure. Although it is too bad that it took so long to get the building up, it is going to be ultimately a credit to New York, and the 9/11 Memorial a fitting tribute to those who lost their lives.

I am sure that I know what you mean but what would be a "fitting" tribute to you when and if you lost your life? A fitting tribute to me would be one that identified my life and career in aviation. I am hoping that is not "just a hole in the ground" made when an aircraft that I was flying no longer was capable of flight. In other words, any tribute is nice but having or deciding how to have a "fitting" tribute is difficult, don't you think? Not picking on you or asking you to provide us with your chosen tombstone wording, just thinking about the words you actually used.

Best regards,

RA1

[Guest hitoallusa]

Lucky you that's where you are.. Thank for the info... I might go up there during the memorial holiday..

Last week I stayed at a hotel near the 9/11 Memorial. There were often long lines to get in, but at other times the lines were short. hard to figure- maybe tour groups?

But, One World trade Center looks great. At night, when the construction is harder to see and the building shape clear, it is quite a beautiful structure. Although it is too bad that it took so long to get the building up, it is going to be ultimately a credit to New York, and the 9/11 Memorial a fitting tribute to those who lost their lives.

[Guest EXPAT]

Here is a photo taken this week of the 9-1-1 memorial at Ground Zero in the event you haven't seen it.

[Lucky]

I am sure that I know what you mean but what would be a "fitting" tribute to you when and if you lost your life? A fitting tribute to me would be one that identified my life and career in aviation. I am hoping that is not "just a hole in the ground" made when an aircraft that I was flying no longer was capable of flight. In other words, any tribute is nice but having or deciding how to have a "fitting" tribute is difficult, don't you think? Not picking on you or asking you to provide us with your chosen tombstone wording, just thinking about the words you actually used.

Best regards,

RA1

This Memorial is to a group of people, not an individual. So it fits the facts as we know them, and does list the names of the individuals who died, and each have a tree planted in their memory. Is any memorial perfect? People that are dead probably don't care. The loved ones seem to like what has been done. So do I, and I have seen it up close.

[Guest hitoallusa]

I truly hope nothing like this happens again in the US..

This Memorial is to a group of people, not an individual. So it fits the facts as we know them, and does list the names of the individuals who died, and each have a tree planted in their memory. Is any memorial perfect? People that are dead probably don't care. The loved ones seem to like what has been done. So do I, and I have seen it up close.

[TampaYankee]

Re: Jane Fonda

this opinion of her (mostly from right wingers) just slays me.

http://open.salon.co...fonda_seriously

It's one thing to be antiwar, another to offer aid, comfort and propaganda support to the enemy. She might have been shot in WWII as what she did was little different from Tokyo Rose with the exception that Jane is an American citizen, the engagement was shorter lived but had a much wider impact, through TV.

She has apologized and I'm willing to not revisit the past but I can see why feelings remain strong about her. That type of 'treason' has a very long shelf life, even if she was young and stupid at the time.

[Guest EXPAT]

Again there was nothing she said that wasn't true.