September 9, 2006 -- It's hard not to like the images of the three buildings that are meant to join the Freedom Tower in replacing the World Trade Center - destroyed in smoke and flame five years ago Monday morning. If nothing else, the renderings - depicting completed towers rising in height order alongside the Freedom Tower - suggest that just maybe the pitiful pit that's languished since 9/11 may one day be gone, and what the terrorists took, restored. The buildings surely seem elegant - glistening in concert with their elder brother, the Freedom Tower, healing a wound in the skyline and affirming their noble chief purpose: commerce.
But the display also made it hard not to wonder: Why couldn't all this have been done more quickly? Rebuilding was vital not only to the economy, but also as a show of American resilience. As America prepares to mark the passing of five full years since those strikes, not one square foot of the Twin Towers has yet been rebuilt.
Not one.
Ground Zero has suffered naysayers and saboteurs. Such as newspapers with hidden agendas that claimed the market couldn't bear to replace the lost space. And Mayor Bloomberg, who piped up late, casting doubt on developer Larry Silverstein's ability to finish the job and urging that already-late plans be scrapped altogether, in favor of some out-of-the-blue preference for residential development.
Gov. Pataki abdicated his role as leader of the project, focusing like a laser instead on his post-gubernatorial career.
Silverstein showed them all. His rapid, government-free reconstruction of 7 WTC stands in biting contrast to the no-go approach by Pataki, Bloomberg and the Port Authority. And with that building now filling up with tenants (Moody's, the latest, is to take 700,000 square feet of space), Lower Manhattan's real-estate bears have to head for hibernation.
But even as the designs for the new buildings are made public, New Yorkers know that they've seen pretty pictures before. They know that much more needs to be done before construction can begin.
The PA must still give a final OK to the financial terms for Ground Zero rebuilding. Leases need to be signed, rents agreed to. The WTC insurers still are holding out on some $1 billion in payouts. Meanwhile, the Port Authority's mammoth bureaucracy has done zilch - zippo - to prepare the site for the new buildings.
If (and it's a monster if) the stars line up, the four towers would be done by . . . 2012. Eleven years after the Twin Towers fell. New Yorkers should keep their fingers crossed. They're not the same as concrete and steel, but pictures do represent, at least, a vision.
That's something, anyway.
Pataki, Bloomberg, Corzine, the Port Authority, etc. should all be completely ASHAMED of themselves. They have disgraced the American people through their playing of politics. Ground zero doesn't just belong to New Yorkers. It's rebuilding is a symbol for all Americans. Rarely do I agree with a dem, but Ray Nagin right when he pointed out the hypocrisy of criticizing New Orleans for not rebuilding in one year, when NYC has had 5 years, and there's still a big hole in the ground. It's time to rebuild. NOW. The President should step in now and play the fatherly role, because it's painfully obvious that NY leadership is unwilling or incompetent. He should bring all sides together, hold a press conference, and explain that the site WILL begin construction immediately.