Seven Years Later: Why Is There Still A Hole at Ground Zero?
Seven years ago this week, I stood on the pile of burning rubble at the south end of Manhattan with thousands of other Americans who in our nation's defining hour did what we could to make a difference. Firefighters, doctors, soldiers, cops, steelworkers, and nurses--we all came together to serve our country in a time of exceptional need. I will never forget the demonstrations of courage and the expressions of sorrow, the sight of the bodies and the smell of the smoke. And I will never forget the bold promises of our leaders, uttered loudly before the smoke even cleared.
They stood on the pile with bullhorns, they issued press releases, and spoke at benefit concerts. We heard politicians from every corner of America swear: "Never Again! We'll make them pay! The terrorists won't win! We will rebuild!"
Seven years later, that hasn't happened. And we should all be embarrassed as a nation for one simple reason more than all the others--there is still a mammoth, gaping hole at Ground Zero.
Bureaucratic gridlock, partisan bickering, old-fashioned greed and failed leadership have all been blended together perfectly in one big pot to create a colossal, historic stew of inaction. And that stew has given the terrorists a score that not only have we failed to avenge, but we have failed to fully recover from. The wounds of 9/11 are not healed, the statement has not been made, and the country--especially the President and the two men running for that office--seem to have forgotten about the recovery of Ground Zero altogether.
Now this week, of course, we'll get the standard, annual photo ops, bold promises and tough talk. Rudy Giuliani will be celebrated, and plastered on every TV network in America. Emotional remembrance videos will run on a loop all week long. Politicians will manipulate the tragedy into a gotcha talking point to bolster their position on one issue or another. And more promises will be made. But the fact will remain--there is no monument, there is no building, and there is no attention. No one in Washington seems to give a second thought to the south end of Manhattan anymore. Except when it's politically convenient for them.
New York is the city I love most in the world. I lost friends on 9/11. I pulled bodies from the rubble there. I, along with almost two million other troops, were sent to war because of what happened there. And I am sick and tired of walking and driving by it and seeing a stalled construction site.
So today, I call on Senators Obama and McCain to make a promise they will keep. Pledge to all those that died, all those that served, and all those that remember, that Ground Zero will be re-built by the end of your first term. Blow through the logjam, bring the divided interests together, craft a plan, flex some muscle, and start moving forward briskly. If you want to unite the country as President, this is a perfect place to start. If we can put a man on the moon, create the internet, and fight two wars simultaneously, I am sure that America can mobilize all its political will, ingenuity and resources to rebuild one of the most important pieces of real estate in the world. And it can start with new leadership under your watch. You can't shake up Washington, if you can't even rebuild Ground Zero.
On September 11, 2001, millions of young Americans like me promised to take a bullet for this country. Seven years later, the least our presidential candidates can do is make a promise to rebuild a few sacred acres of it.
Paul Rieckhoff is the Executive Director and Founder of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA). A non-profit and nonpartisan organization, IAVA is the nation's first and largest group for veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, representing more than 100,000 veteran members and civilian supporters in all 50 states. Rieckhoff served as a First Lieutenant and infantry rifle platoon leader in the Iraq war from 2003-2004. He is now a nationally recognized authority on the war in Iraq and issues affecting troops, military families and veterans.
Paul, I admire you so much. I really do. But leaving a gaping hole at ground zero is to any ordinary politicians advantage. They can take photos ops in front of the gaping hole. It is a gut wrenching reminder of that time. They can pontificate in front of the hole, make vows of never again in front of it - it is a no brainer - it gets votes.
They will finally rebuild the site once it no longer can incite those emotions in our psyche. I wish it were different, but politicians are slime that prey upon the emotions of the electorate. The very few that are honest, lack the power to do anything.
That is why, if the stars are aligned just right, we just might have an honest politician as president with the power to get things done.
When Obama has the power, he will rebuild.
If McCain wins, he will milk the horror of the hole for all it is worth for many more years to come.
September 11, 2008 12:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
I don't get it.
Why should Washington be involved in the building of an office building in New York City -- or any city for that matter?
September 11, 2008 1:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
You can say that again, Ellen. I live in Manhattan and still think this post is beyond puerile, can't see why Josh Marshall recommended it.
As if newly inked leases will restore the nation's lost sense or pride.
Guess it takes all kinds.
September 11, 2008 3:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
I don't agree at all. I'm a New Yorker. Actually a Brooklynite. The lack of building at the WTC site is in my view due to political bickering. Who gets to put their initials on the fifty year icon? And fifty is probably as long as it'll be. Does anyone really think about the Battleship Arizona anymore? But the key point as far as I'm concerned is that the money is there so eventually something will be built, though it'll probably piss off more people than it'll please.
I'd much rather see a pledge to rebuild New Orleans for the people that lived there. The money isn't there for that, at least not in any sense of reality that I've seen. Hell, I'd rather see Coney Island rebuilt into the fantasy escape it was 100 years ago. I'd much rather see construction of positive sites than glorified multi-billion dollar tombstones.
I'm sorry that so much honorable effort and sacrifice has been turned over to the control of dishonorable people but no icon can correct that ongoing disaster. Let's not have any more clowns standing on the bodies of others making self-serving but completely empty speeches. Bush made an empty speech while standing on the ground bodies of thousands of people at the World Trade Center site but he also made an empty speech standing amid the drowned bodies of people that died needlessly and pointlessly in New Orleans, victims of apathy and enmity - remember the bogus horror stories spread and the American guns pointed at Americans in distress, forcing them to return to the moated ghetto that New Orleans had become. Build something positive and end the speechifying.
September 11, 2008 1:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
I used to live near the WTC - those two towers were ugly, overbearing things to walk past or live near.
Why is the level of obsession with that attack so high? We got blind-sided. The bad guys landed their Sunday punch. And for seven years our country has acted like a man with a serious head injury.
The attackers were from Saudi Arabia - then we see our president on TV holding hands with, and kissing, the king of that country.
The attacks were ordered by a man in a cave in Afghanistan - but there were no middle-management bad guys, we are told. No one arranged phony passports, no one provided the financing, no one coordinated the whole thing. There was a man in a cave and nineteen dead bad guys.
The story we are told about this event is completely illogical, nonsensical ... and the public has lapped it up.
What is wrong with our country ?
September 11, 2008 2:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
Re: No one arranged phony passports, no one provided the financing, no one coordinated the whole thing. There was a man in a cave and nineteen dead bad guys.
There were no phony passports. The hijackers had real passporst in their own names and they had entered the US legally. I sometimes hear rants about how some of them had six drivers licenses from different states, and I think, So what? To get on those planes all they needed was one license, in fact they didn't even need that since they had their passports too.
As for the financiers, one of the under-reported successes (yes, there have been successes) of the campaign against al Qaida is that the financing pipeline has been largely shut down.
September 13, 2008 7:22 AM | Reply | Permalink
In fact, I think the hole at Ground Zero is the perfect memorial for the victims of 9/11.
The fact is, President Bush has not so much as lifted a finger against those truly responsible for the rise of Al Qaeda and the attacks on 9/11:
www.asecondlookatthesaudis.com
Our response to the deadliest single attack on American soil in our nation's history has been to invade the wrong country, and let the real culprits get away with it (again and again) scot-free.
An empty hole seems perfectly fitting.
September 11, 2008 3:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
Used to work across from WTC hole. Lower Manhattan is a CURRENT disaster, with streets blocks and viable small businesses shut down for a whole transportation center scheme that isn't happening. It's ugly, the air nasty, and the area hard to get around.
The problem is that the developers can make big bucks from rebuilding the towers, but the office space would then be unrentable. So everyone does this kabuki dance pretending they want it rebuilt when doing so would be a farce.
Fill in the hole and plant trees.
September 11, 2008 3:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
What an overly simplistic view of the building process. This post, however idealistic, illustrates the layperson's naivete about the complexities - political, economic, urbanistic, and architectural - of building, and in particular building at a massive international and symbolically charged graveyard. There are countless stakeholders, countless bureaucracies, countless creative and political minds that all need to work in sync to get Ground Zero finished. It won't be a President (or any pledge, or any single person) who can get through that process, it is far too messy.
This morass was utterly predictable, sadly. But "telling everyone to cut this sh*t out", a la W and those pesky middle easterners, is not going to work either. Rieckhoff is effectively proposing a neoconservative foreign policy for New York's urbanism, and it makes no realistic sense at all.
September 11, 2008 3:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
I agree and take back my earlier statement to rebuild. The reality - it would sit there less than half rented and become a money pit. I agree with jeffroby:
Fill in the hole and plant trees!
September 11, 2008 4:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
There were some good design plans in the beginning to reclaim a grid for that area and make it more human sized, and no "soaring memorial" as Giuliani fought for. To be perfectly honest: The Libeskind (sp) design is gross.
I wish there was a real vision for Downtown.
September 11, 2008 6:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
Frankly, I don't see the point of the memorial.
Yeah, let's build a friggin' giant ass Disney style monument because 19 nutjobs killed themselves and 3000 citizens almost none of us knew, but mostly just showed up to work that day.
Do you think the dude who is dead because he listened to the Trade Tower Authority instructions and stayed in his office in the tower that got hit second would like the idea of the owners of the Trade Tower wining and dining at a grand opening gala dedicating a profitable new tourist attraction that they will be obvious mega-financial beneficiaries of?
If some crazy fuck kills my kid can I count on the US government to spend 1/3000th of what's been tendered on the reaction to 9/11 paying me for my pain and suffering, memorializing and avenging her death and protecting my other 2 kids? It would be billions.
Of course not. It was just a crazy fuck. That shit happens.
September 11, 2008 4:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
A gaping hole is exactly what should be there, so that our national propensity for forgetting is not allowed to cover over 9/11. Whatever you take to be the meaning of that day, nothing could possibly mark it the way a gaping hole does. Some things are more important than moronic promises made in the emotion of the moment. Europe tends to remember the horrors of war a lot better than we do, and why? Because there are plenty of ruins from WWI and II that have never been papered over with pretty buildings or even well-meant memorials. Auschwitz still stands, not because they don't want to rebuild, but because they don't want to forget.
If we are given the chance to forget, we will. If a gaping hole stays where it was made 7 years ago, at least some of us won't. A new building, a new memorial -- they're all ways to forget, even if some people think they're a way to remember. They're a way to make the remembrance pretty, with marble faces and lovely engraving. But a gaping hole is what happened that day, and we should have the national will and courage to prevent the forgetmeisters from putting something else there.
September 11, 2008 4:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
A gaping hole is exactly what should be there, so that our national propensity for forgetting is not allowed to cover over 9/11. Whatever you take to be the meaning of that day, nothing could possibly mark it the way a gaping hole does. Some things are more important than moronic promises made in the emotion of the moment. Europe tends to remember the horrors of war a lot better than we do, and why? Because there are plenty of ruins from WWI and II that have never been papered over with pretty buildings or even well-meant memorials. Auschwitz still stands, not because they don't want to rebuild, but because they don't want to forget.
If we are given the chance to forget, we will. If a gaping hole stays where it was made 7 years ago, at least some of us won't. A new building, a new memorial -- they're all ways to forget, even if some people think they're a way to remember. They're a way to make the remembrance pretty, with marble faces and lovely engraving. But a gaping hole is what happened that day, and we should have the national will and courage to prevent the forgetmeisters from putting something else there.
September 11, 2008 4:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
Lack of Presidential leadership. Plain and simple. He squandered the highest level of good will the world has ever known on 9/12/01 for tax cuts. No vision. No security deals. Nothing. Instead, the world hates us and is now uncooperative.
I've been listening to Tom Friedman's book tour lately (his excitement is so contagious; I love it), and he makes the point that we're now the "US of Metal Detectors" and "Small Town SWAT teams", but no good ideas have come from 9/11.
Innovation. Ideas. Green economy sector. Energy. Vision. Future.
Absent during GWB's reign.
Paul Rieckhoff: Keep up the great work!
September 11, 2008 4:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
This post doesn't recognize the single biggest drag on the pace of rebuilding: the fact that human remains are still ALL OVER the WTC vicinity.
Whenever they start to dig, they find hands, fingers, bone fragments, personal effects. That's what has delayed Deutsche Bank, the foundations for the new towers, West street, etc. The medical examiner has to come in, it's a long process to clear an area of tiny pieces of remains.
The whole area is a giant graveyard created when debris (and human remains) shot through underground tunnels as the buildings collapsed.
There is a very active, very heartfelt section of 9/11 families whose mission is to make sure that ALL of the remains at Ground Zero receive "proper burial." Whether that is possible is a debate. Whether it is holding up the process is not.
There are other factors, but I'm convinced that the remains issue is the #1 impediment to fast paced reconstruction at Ground Zero, for good or bad.
September 11, 2008 5:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
Interesting that the comments are overwhelmingly opposed to building a monument or a new office building. I'm not a New Yorker nor do I know any people directly affected by the events, so I can't say what the truly right thing to do is. I am somewhat neutral on the subject.
However, as an American, I am ready to move on with my life. I grow more and more weary every year with the angst filled 'woe is us, we shall avenge' political theater that it has become. In the seven years after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, we fought and won a world war on two fronts and were headlong into rebuilding two continents. The past seven years since 9-11 have been an embarrassment of buffoonery, corruption and misplaced vengeance.
I'd be happy if they just put a park there with a simple memorial marker and let's all get back to our lives.
September 11, 2008 5:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
But Paul "promised to take a bullet for this country," and he deserves a monument -- and not just grass and trees.
September 11, 2008 5:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, a monument for all of us. For lives lost on 9/11, for lives lost in Afghanistan because of 9/11, and for lives lost in Iraq for allowing ourselves to be fooled in the name of 9/11.
September 12, 2008 12:13 AM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, a monument for all of us. For lives lost on 9/11, for lives lost in Afghanistan because of 9/11, and for lives lost in Iraq for allowing ourselves to be fooled in the name of 9/11.
September 12, 2008 12:14 AM | Reply | Permalink
I like the idea of planting trees in place of the towers. I just happen to think something simple is a more elegant memorial to what happened. A big ugly building would be a distraction.
September 12, 2008 3:57 AM | Reply | Permalink
Another New Yorker here, and I don't know anyone who would rather have another office building there, than have this money be used to help families and businesses effected by 9/11. I can also think of plenty of other infrastructure that would actually benefit from that sort of money. Put it into modernizing the subway system, that will have a FAR greater impact on most people's daily lives.
Building another skyscraper would demonstrate to the world that we've learned absolutely nothing. There's not much financial benefit to them (I hear many are having trouble leasing all of their space), they are notoriously difficult to evacuate, and most are simply an expression of arrogance.
September 12, 2008 8:45 AM | Reply | Permalink