Back After Two Weeks

Well, well, well, well, well. . . .It's been two weeks since I last posted, but still no war. Yet. I made it through the President's Day blizzard alright, and my VW is fine, thank you very much. Meanwhile, as Bob Dylan might have put it, life goes on all around me.

I saw Dainiel Libeskind's proposed design for the World Trade Center site, which was chosen to replace the original complex that al-Qaeda so ruthlessly destroyed, and frankly, I find it appalling. Most of the buildings in the proposed complex are sheer glass, and the thought of terrorists trying to blow up these structures is terrifying. With so much glass flying in all conceivable directions, more people could be maimed or killed than those who were victims of the September 11, 2001 attacks. The designs themselves are thoroughly ugly, a Cubist parody of a drinking glass set, and the 1,776-foot-tall spire is simple without being elegant. If the Twin Towers gave minimalism a bad name, this new tower should make it seem even more heretical.

I, for one, would have taken advantage of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey's plan to turn the area into a rail transit hub and built a simple railway building, no higher than twelve stories, similar in style to Detroit's abandoned and dilapidated but still grand Michigan Central Terminal on the west side of Church Street, with a nice indoor ground-level lobby above the train platforms, and leave the space closer to West and Liberty Streets where the towers used to stand as a memorial to the 9/11/01 victims. It's doubtful, though, that anyone would have listened to me. After all, I'm not a professional architect.

I just have good taste.