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| Scarlet
Letters |
| Living
at Ground Zero |
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But
how do we deal with hatred and anger, which are often the root causes of
such senseless violence? This is a very difficult question, especially
when it concerns a nation and we have certain fixed conceptions of how
to deal with such attacks.
--
The Dalai Lama, regarding the World Trade Center attack |
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Almost
since the day the towers fell, there's been speculation as to what would
replace the World Trade Center at what became known as Ground Zero.
Right now, it's a huge hole
in the ground, and a hole in the heart of New York.
My first inclination was to
make it an enormous park. Heaven knows the Big Apple could use some more
greenspace. But there are two reasons why my Midwestern idea won't work:
it's too big and too valuable.
The survivors groups want a
modest building, nothing too fancy, coupled with a memorial to the victims
of Sept. 11. Somehow, that just feels wrong to me. I can understand their
fears. But to build something nondescript, something that won't garner
attention, is the architectural equivalent of hiding under the bed.
A New York art gallery actually
had a gallery of architects' ideas. There's Hans Hollein's near-carbon
copy of the original towers. There's a loopy idea from Carlos Brillembourg
- literally, a giant loop in mid-air. And I'm not even going to mention
Jakob MacFarlane's idea, except to say that I think the 70s retro thing
is on its way out, thank God.
The most practical problem people
have with a skyscraper at Ground Zero is that it will attract terrorists.
They're probably right. On the other hand, the White House attracts terrorists.
So does the Pentagon, the Golden Gate Bridge, the Statue of Liberty, the
St. Louis Arch and the Olympics. No one suggested canceling the Olympics
because of terrorists, and despite our secret wishes, Congress has continued
to meet in the Capitol Building even though it's accepted knowledge that
the third airliner was on its way to the Capitol when it crashed in Pennsylvania.
There's no surer way to lose
a war of terror than acting terrified.
After sorting through the proposals
on Ground Zero, I was still rooting for Sept. 11 Memorial Park when I stumbled
across an unpopular idea by New Zealand-born index trader Derek Turner,
who lives in the Bahamas.
Turner wants to build a cyber-city
that would be the tallest building in the world at 1,750 feet. It would
be a cluster of four cylindrical towers, with a fifth tower in the center.
The center tower would contain 50 high-speed elevators, each named after
a state. At the top of the towers, Turner would build an 11-story pyramid
hotel. At the base, a huge biosphere dome would enclose a park and nature
area. In it, he will plant 2,344 trees, each named after a victim of Sept.
11.
The new towers would have everything
- business, retail, restaurants, entertainment, residential space, parks,
hotels and subway access. It's the quintessential future - everything in
one place.
"Why build such a tempting target?"
people have been screaming. Anything so daring would be the first target
to be blown up.
Here's how Turner wants to keep
nutbars from crashing planes into his creation:
• An experimental "sonic wave"
that can repel flying objects at up to five miles. No, I've never heard
of such a thing either, but apparently he's got one.
• A five-mile "no-fly zone"
around Manhattan. Good luck.
• Super-security on people entering
the building, including fingerprint scans, iris scans and three-dimensional
full-body scans. This reminds me of that scene from "Total Recall" when
Arnold is running through the airport and the machines X-ray his body to
see if he's carrying a gun. Sorry, couldn't help myself, I just slid waaaay
into geekdom. Moving on.
If all of this fails, and someone
still manages to crash into the new towers, Turner thinks the center column's
support will prevent the collapses that killed so many last year. Even
if it doesn't, he's got these measures in place:
• Stairwells and superfast elevators
to get out quickly.
• Twelve helicopter pads for
escape routes.
• Titanium ladders to escape
externally. Yowsa. Given the choice between death and trying to climb 1,000
feet to safety, I'd have to sit down and think her over - and I'm not even
afraid of heights.
Turner's given this a lot of
thought. His motives may even be pure, although the general press seems
to believe he doesn't have sufficient financial backing for the $5 million
building or sufficient support from New York, the hometown of all hometowns.
But the science-fiction nut
in me really likes the idea, because it would be like visiting my own fiction
in my own lifetime. As an advocate for planned communities, I find the
idea of a self-contained "cyber city" quite appealing - less time spent
in a car, more time spent walking and living. Personally, I wish I could
put my car in storage, walk to work, walk to the store, walk to a restaurant,
theater and bookshop and walk home. I'd certainly lose some weight, and
be happier for it. At this new World Trade Center, I could do it.
Frankly, anything we build at
Ground Zero is going to be a major turn-on for terrorists. Ask the Israelis
how tall they build their buildings - it doesn't matter. The bombers walk
into an open-air market and blow themselves to bits. Bin Laden didn't have
a thing for the World Trade Center because it was tall - he wanted to destroy
it because it stood for American commerce. For the same reason, he wanted
to destroy the Pentagon because it stood for the American military presence
and the Capitol because it stood for American democracy, such as it is.
Building short buildings won't
keep the bad guys away, and neither will a memorial. Only when we find
ways to live and let live with others on this planet, allowing other cultures
to find their own paths as we have found ours, will we stop the flood of
people who want to kill us.
John Kennedy said he did not
seek a Pax Americana, with the will of America forced on the rest of the
world. We still haven't heard him. |
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Column Credo:
I'd be sitting in a restaurant and someone
would come up and say, "I don't like your column on this or that." I'd
hand him 35 cents. That was what the paper cost then. The refund on the
product. He'd get upset. Well, that's one attitude I have. Today,
it's half a buck. What can you buy for half a buck? Do I owe them something
that will be worth reading a hundred years from now? I don't think so.
Do I owe them something of the quality of Mark Twain? Naaa. Not for 50
cents.
I guess what I owe them is that when I
write something, it's what I think. No editor told me to write it. I'm
not doing it because the Tribune editorial page will like it, or not. So
they can be quite sure that they're getting what I think at the moment.
-- Mike Royko
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