June 18, 2008
Less Than Zero?
A view of Ground Zero, the construction site, with the Freedom Tower in the foreground.
Every so often I go back to the World Trade Center site and make a loop, west across the Liberty St. bridge, north through the World Financial Center, pausing to take in the view from the big windows behind the Winter Garden, east on the Vesey St. bridge, and south on Church. (And then on to Century 21 to stock up on socks and underwear.) What’s there now is beginning to look pretty convincingly like a major construction site. And that’s good. What I wonder, though, as I circumnavigate the hole, angling for vantage points, is whether the end result will make anyone happy.
In my latest Metropolis column, I take inventory. There is, no surprise, a surplus of business as usual and a shortage of visionary zeal.