Bush to City: "Drop Dead"

A few issues here. First, I pass the site everyday and I'm stunned not only at how many tourists are standing around (getting in everyones way) looking at a big pit, but how many of them are taking pictures of the sky. Not of the building site, not of the plaques and tributes, but of the empty sky. Wow.

As far as why there is still nothing built there, that's a function of the local and state governments not cooperating. So many pieces of government have a hand in this that gridlock has been the result. Silverman had the right to rebuild Tower #7 without interference, and it's up and has tenants.

 

Like a rain delay at a ball game.

 

I can understand why some would go down there - I visited NYC for the first time in March and went because I wanted to see a piece of our nation's history.
Also, there is a Ground Zero visitors' center across the street filled with memorials, WTC artifacts, a 9/11 timeline and audio testimonials from people who lived through the tragedy.
It was much more interesting than the site itself, which, as others have said, is a giant hole of a construction site. Very boring.

 

Imagine that government's and politicians not getting along and arguing over how they can get their hands on and spend other people's money. Yeah, I can see why they need more.

 

New Yorkers wondering why tourists go the the Ground Zero area when "there is nothing to see" is just a passive-aggressive jab to reiterate how much smarter the locals are than the bumpkin tourists.

As another poster pointed out, why do people go to an open field in Gettysburg? Why do people visit a gravesite when they aren't visiting a body?

Obviously, there is a spiritual connection that the tourists feel, or want to feel, by visiting. And for someone growing up in Pigs Knuckle, Arkansas, it is probably an overwhelming feeling just seeing the enormity (two city blocks?) of the area that went down.

 

I know what the article is about. I can read.
But the writer makes a point to say "America" has abandoned NYC, then specifies where the government has failed it. He possibly makes legitimate points, but he undermines his case with false, grandiose statements designed to draw in the reader's attention.

 

People, myself included go to Gettysburg because it is essentially the same place it was in July 1863. You can look over the field where Pickett charged and see what the soldiers saw.

I worked in Tower #2 for years, and there is NOTHING in common with what you would have seen prior to 9/11/01 and what you see now. Nothing. All your doing is occupying the same space.

As far as NY'ers belittling the people from Pigs Knuckle, be a Ny'er and go down to the deep south. The enmity is far worse.

 

My apologies. I was going on the assumption that you chose not to read the piece instead of just ignore it.

I would say that the author is fairly correct in that “America” has abandoned NYC because there is no outrage from anywhere except the NYC area. Do you think the state of Wyoming is going to return some of the federal money it received or donate it to NYC because it recognizes that it doesn’t deserve it?

When senators from states which previously forked over pork barrel project after pork barrel project for Salt Lake City to host the Olympics, are saying that NYC is making a “money grab” in trying to receive some federal funds, you have things quite a bit off kilter.

Yes, the statement is grandiose. However, those people around the country that show up with their cameras to take pictures of ground zero are not returning home and writing their senators to lobby for a rebuild of the WTC. They aren’t writing their congress people asking if NYC is receiving enough federal money to prevent such an accident from happening again. They are, in fact, re-electing the same dunderheads that siphon off money from the needed areas and sending it to places like Wyoming.

 

Wait a minute -- are you saying that government is taking tax payers money and doing stuff with it that it wasn't earmarked for, are not living up to their end of the bargain, are not funding the things they claim your money is going to fund and instead are using it on their own favorite boondoggles and pork projects?

I am shocked! Shocked I say.....

But aren't you the guy who is always telling us how efficient our government is and how they do a great job of allocating our tax money and thus they should take more?

 

No. I have never said such a thing. It isn't a surprise to me that you would type that, though. Of course, with your complaints about context and all that, the irony is astounding.

 

I was down there a couple of weeks ago to take the PATH, so I walked around the site for the first time. Obviously, there's not much to see. It was far more chilling to look across the river from Jersey City, picture how high those towers rose, then imagine a jumbo jet bearing down on them.

 

No matter how many times I do it -- and that is just about every day -- looking at the NY skyline from the west bank of the Hudson River, I keep seeing a huge hole that will never been filled. And yes, it still gives me chills.