HIGHER! HIGHER!
We appear to be slow learners.
The official ceremony marking the laying of the cornerstone for the new structure which is to rise on the Â?Ground ZeroÂ? site in New York was held this past week. It was revealed, once again, that what we are to see in place of the tragically destroyed World Trade Center Towers, will be our latest entry in the international competition to see who can erect the world's tallest building.
I had hoped it might be a true memorial; a monument done in remembrance of the thousands of victims of that fated day in September of 2001. I think survivors and families of the victims of that cowardly attack might think,too, of such a building primarily as a token rising as a tribute to honor those who died or were injured in the attack. Many families hold that day as a special moment of deep loss and to see the memorial structure designed to mark that loss be first and foremost known as Â?the tallest building in the world.Â? leave their hopes as a secondary meaning. The world-wide contest to see who can build the tallest building has haunted Mankind since the Â?Tower of BabelÂ? days. It a few years, whatever is erected, will be excelled before too long and its distinction lost. Then, possible a decade later, I suppose, it will be considered to became a tribute to those who died September 11, 2001.
This fascination we have with building the world's tallest seems to have no end. We lost the Â?titleÂ? years ago to Indonesia. We have refrained from mentioning the subject during the interim years. Taiwan will take over soon and other nations are competing, as well. I hear mentions quite often which insist we are Â?tempting the terroristsÂ? to do it all over again when we construct new skyscrapers of increasingly higher skyscrapers, provide targets for more disaster.
There are, of course , other sides to such a discussion.
Some would contend and with reasonable logic, that it is far better to build enduring memorials which have some practical use and utilitarian purpose. That, they insist, is far better than to rear chunks of stone or metal for pigeons to decorate and other men to desecrate. Some even see humor in the present construction. Upper upper floors of the new building will support the content-winning communications towers which add whatever extension needed to be a contest winner. Those upper floors are open-sided and do not house offices, but, rather, large rotors, wind driven to create electrical power. Scoffers say that if an erratic wind comes up and all the rotors spin at one time they will shake the stuck-up structure to pieces and save the terrorists time, money and effort. Or, who knows? With a steady, prevailing wind we might have a new and higher Â?Leaning TowerÂ? to show to tourists from all over the world.
A.L.M. July 6, 2004 [c496wds]
