Under Construction

Loyal readers of Simply Left Behind will remember that I have had some small sport with the "progress" at Ground Zero. To-wit, you may recall this little grandstand play of the governor (and Mayor Bloomberg):

That happened just prior to the Republican National Convention, a sort of beauty pageant for the morbidly ugly souls of America. Consider this cornerstone placement as the fireworks display that preceded the opening and the tossing out of the first gall.

Today comes this news:

Real deal for WTC site
It took leadership to get here, and it’ll take even more in the years to come

April 27, 2006

Isn't it amazing what a little leadership can accomplish? What progress can be made on the toughest of problems when the metro area's top officials work together for the common good? That's the only reason for this week's workable agreement to redevelop the grounds of the World Trade Center.

Until the governors of New York and New Jersey and the mayor of New York City agreed to a common negotiating tactic with the site's lessee, it was a ground zero for progress. More than four years after two jets destroyed the Twin Towers, killing thousands, the project has languished in a political, legal and financial swamp.

So the agreement is reached. What's next?

NEW YORK -- After spending months wrangling for control of buildings and money at ground zero, politicians and a private developer prepared to roll out trucks Thursday to mark the beginning of construction of the Freedom Tower, the symbolic skyscraper designed to replace the destroyed World Trade Center.

Yah huh. Is this another grandstand play? I mean, four...almost five...years after the attacks, and TWO years after the laying of the cornerstone, mirabile dictu, the Trade Center site will rise again!

Waiting For Godot, anyone?

*snark*

Oh....and that "cornerstone"? Granite, solid, should last throughout eternity as it is made of the stuff the planet is made of?

Politicians broke ground on the tower for the first time on July 4, 2004, with a 20-ton inscribed granite cornerstone that has remained encased in blue plywood since construction stalled.

A fitting dénouement to a tragic bit of New York political theatre.

snarkasm, snarcasm, snarky
George Pataki
New York
Larry Silverstein
Michael Bloomberg
World Trade Center