Time to rebuild the World Trade Center and fill that hole in the ground

[Hekate]

Please hear me out, because the fights here at DU are mirroring that of the worst and best in our country. There are DUers from NYC who say that the rest of the country simply does not understand their anguish as they commute past the rubble. There are DUers a thousand miles away from NY who want to chuck the Constitution in order to be "sensitive."

First, a community center has been proposed, not a mosque. A quite-respectable* group of people led by a well-known gentleman are planning to rehab an abandoned building in an area that currently boasts a pornography shop and a strip-tease club.
* http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/09/nyregion/09mosque.html?_r=1 


What is so hard to understand about it being a community center? Or is it that some very vocal people simply cannot stand the thought of Those People being anywhere in the city? Well, they live there and they're your neighbors, and they didn't make the hole in the ground. Some of Those People died in the Towers as well. New York is probably the most diverse city on the planet. It houses large numbers of everyone from everywhere. Those People are New Yorkers too, and many are US citizens as well.

I'm not disrespecting the emotions that New Yorkers or anyone else may have about the heinous crime that took place. But there's churches around the area. Should we ask them to go away because in the past their antecedents committed heinous acts like the Spanish Inquisition and Salem witch trials? The porn shop and strip joint are both legit businesses, but in my opinion (and probably that of all the faithful be they Muslim or Christian or Jew) very sleazy enterprises. Should they be ordered out, as inappropriate?

There is a lot I don't understand about the Post-911 mindset (although I observed GW Bush and Friends manipulate fear and loathing for all they were worth for a decade). I don't understand how Americans, who are the most enterprising engineers on the planet, and New Yorkers who are the most business-oriented -- how could they/we have NOT rebuilt on that site. If I understand correctly, there is still nothing there but rubble. Why?

This isn't about grief -- it's about malaise. It's about defeat.

Americans build! It's what we do! When tornadoes level towns, the Americans bury their dead and build anew. When rivers flood, Americans mourn, dig out and rebuild. When roads are covered by rockslides, the County sends bulldozers and construction crews and the roads are cleared and traffic flows -- Americans don't go walking by 10 years later saying, "There used to be a road here."

It's only since George W. Bush squatted in the White House that we don't take charge and build anew like that. 9-11 happened on his watch. New Orleans drowned on his watch. The culture of Minerals Management was set by Bush's appointees so that the Gulf oil gusher happened on the next president's watch.

Why has the World Trade Center not been rebuilt? Perhaps if New Yorkers were to see new life taking hold there, they would start to feel better about themselves -- and about others. Perhaps New Yorkers would start to feel like they were not defeated on 9-11. That neither NY nor America was destroyed, only injured, and that they (and the US) can and will recover.

Hekate

[brooklynite]

1. Do you actually know anything about Lower Manhattan?

You title your posting "fill that hole in the ground", and then you talk about the Muslim Community Center (which I have no objection to). The two have nothing to do with each other because, as many people have said, the Cordoba House isn't at Ground Zero; ts three blocks away; and in addition, there is no hole in the ground; WTC buildings have been under construction for about five years (admittedly delayed by the political shenanigans of former GOvernor Pataki and others). Plenty of arguments you can give in support of the Community Center, but this isn't one of them.

[Hekate]

14. I thought I made clear that I know the center isn't at GZ; sorry if I didn't. My point has to do w/

... the grieving and anger expressed by quite a few DUers over the devastation, not just of the past, but of the present. One said she commutes past every day and her stomach clenches up at the sight of the destruction, and it gave me the distinct impression that little has gotten accomplished.

You read enough of that here over a couple of days and put it together with old news stories about how no one could make up their minds about what to build or IF to build at all -- especially the business (in the first few years) about the ground now being so "holy" that NOTHING but some kind of memorial garden with butterflies and birdies should ever be built there, and you wonder wtf is going on.

Last night I read more of that "sacred ground" logic here, along with way too much ignorant bigotry against Muslims and their right to worship ANYWHERE in the US, plus the continual conflation by DUers of a community center with a MegaMosque. No.

No. There is no part of this planet that has not been soaked in blood at some part in our history as human beings. We walk on the bones of our ancestors wherever we go. We build over them. We set aside parts as "holy" but we don't designate the whole as a graveyard. We live.

All of you -- I sincerely apologize if I have factual parts of this story wrong. I hate getting facts wrong. However, you can probably tell that something got me steamed enough to sit up way past my bedtime, stop replying to individual posters, and put it all in my own OP. And that "something" was a combination of bigotry and defeatism, sometimes but not always in the same post, repeated endlessly. :banghead:

Hekate

[The_Commonist]

2. For the most part, New Yorkers don't give a shit...

...about the "hole in the ground" or whatever else happens in that area.

"Perhaps if New Yorkers were to see new life taking hold there, they would start to feel better about themselves -- and about others. Perhaps New Yorkers would start to feel like they were not defeated on 9-11."

What the fuck are you talking about? That's just about the dumbest thing I've ever read.

This whole "Ground Zero Mosque" is a manufactured controversy by demagogues who otherwise actively hate New York and it's people, but are more than willing to use us as part of their partisan porn to rile up the rubes in flyover land. The rest of the time we are a punching bag.

You know, Hekate, usually you're cool. But this time you sound like one of the rubes. You've fallen for the bullshit. You actually seem to think this is some sort of controversy. It's not...

[Jennicut]

3. The 9/11 thing was always biggest with those far away from us up in the northeast.

I live in Connecticut. A lot of people who lived in CT died in those towers, a lot of them commuters from Greenwich and Darien and other towns from the Gold Coast of CT. But you know what? Those most effected moved on. We have a memorial in CT of those that died because we had so many. It is in Westport. We grieved, we moved on. I was working for a call center the day that 9/11 happened and all of our clients from one account were living in apartments in NYC and getting cable service from one of the tower antennas. I got so many calls those few weeks after 9/11 from stunned and shocked residents. Not about cable, just about general confusion. My best friend's sister was working in the Pentagon that day and knocked unconscious. She was in a coma but eventually woke up. Those days were tough for me and many others. But 9 (!) years later, I think many of those people don't dwell on the tragic events of that day. Life is not worth living in the past. Remembering is okay, manipulation of people's feelings that should have been dealt with years ago is not okay. Most politicians, Dem and Rethug, just don't get it.

[madinmaryland]

5. I lived in CT on 9/11 and worked in Lower Manhattan during that time and until

2004. I worked across the street in the World Financial Center and went through the disaster as did most all other NYers. We were essentially repulsed by the reaction of the rest of the country after Nov. 2001.

[Jennicut]

8. Yes, it seems those most affected were able to grieve and then move on.

I still don't get why the rest of the country wants to tell Manhattan and NY what to do. I have family from there, no one tells New Yorkers what to do or how to feel, LOL!

[seattleblue]

6. "the rubes in flyover land"

Okay. Thanks for letting us know what you think of most DUers. Not that anyone gives a shit. It is no wonder no politician from New York can get elected to anything outside of their little world.

[Golden Raisin]

7. Teddy and Franklin Roosevelt

were both politicians from NY.

[seattleblue]

10. I am aware that the Roosevelts were New Yorkers.

And if you go into the 1800s there are probably others. But in the modern era (post WW II) there have been none. Maybe because the voters in "fly over land" don't like the arrogance they see.

[Jennicut]

11. Seattle and Washington are not fly over land. Neither of the coasts are.

And generally, it is the ignorant idiots in the red states that are the problem, not moderates and liberals in those states. But even in the northeast, I can attest to the fact that ignorance lives even here.

[leftynyc]

9. I'm guessing The Commonist

wasn't speaking about anyone at DU. I understand his/her frustration with the OP - it's filled with assumptions and points that are simply not true. And New Yorkers get dumped on regularly by many of those between the coasts and watching the right use the tragedy in our city to further their political games has been revolting to watch when we know they don't give a shit about anyone who actually lives here.

Oh, and FDR was a New Yorker.

[The_Commonist]

12. Yes, thank you...

It's the demagogues who see them as rubes.
Sheep to be sheared for their money, by inflaming them with divide and conquer bullshit.
I think of them as fellow Americans.
We're all in this together.

[leftynyc]

13. Sorry for jumping in like that

I know you could have defended yourself quite ably. As a fellow NYer, I share many of your feelings on the matter. Frankly, I think the OP should ask to have the thread deleted.

[The_Commonist]

19. Hey, no problemo...

I wasn't clear in stating that it's the demagogues treating people like rubes. I'm glad someone else understood that.

And Hekate, I thought that was a good response upthread.
I think you're cool again...

[leftynyc]

4. So much wrong with this diary

First of all - it's time you get educated about what's going on down at the site which is NOT a hole in the ground:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/8/14/1390/48336

Second of all - New Yorkers don't do defeated.

[Hekate]

15. Lefty, please see my reply to Brooklynite, as it is for you as well.

And, thanks for the link.

[leftynyc]

18. {{{Hekate}}}

And I got snarky because for a couple of weeks now I've been subjected to people telling me how I should feel about this issue. It's been demagogued to death and yeah, I got really snarky when you called NYes defeated (never happen, not EVAH). Peace.

[denimgirly]

16. I say we make it a parking lot -- NY needs more parking space.

Seeing as how there is constant unrest and this space just doesnt go away why not put it to good use and solve a persisting NY problem...parking space.

[karynnj]

17. The trade centers have not been rebuilt because of two reasons

1) Arguments between the various stakeholders
and
2) there is not a shortage of office space in Manhattan. No developer will commit to build something that they do not see a decent rate of return on. Ask yourself - would you want to work on the 110th floor of a rebuilt tower? - how about the 70th?

What they need is to agree on a fitting memorial/park and build it - maybe with the federal government buying out the company that owned it.