Yay new World Trade Center!

As I understand it, the pre-9/11 World Trade Center was pretty much a money-losing deal for both private and public interests, from the very start. No fears of attacks caused that, it was just too much concentrated office space with too little demand. So, I wasn't surprised about what's happened in the years since 9/11, which have seen public and private interests struggle to figure out how to build something cool and ambitious on that land without heading into bankpruptcy.

Seems now that a deal's been reached.

That is some good news. I'd never claim to have had a truly harrowing 9/11 experience, given that so many really did, but I do remember seeing the still-smoking ruins from the window of a plane and feeling that something needed to be replaced. Current plans call for a Freedom Tower that will rival our own twins in height, along with a major complex of other buildings, by 2012. Trust me, they'll finish it late. My guess is at least 3 years late.

But I'm glad to see some progress. Our country has made, at every level, far too many bad decisions in reaction to 9/11. I don't care if it takes until 2012, or 2015 or 2020... we need something built there that will help us get beyond the event, at least symbollically. Because we need to get beyond it. Without insulting anyone lost or hurt, we really need to do that. For over five years now, we've had policies that have been either 9/11-centric or justified by that day and those policies haven't served us well.

Can some good architecture and some progress by construction workers help us move on? I really hope so. That was a bad day. An evil day. But we can't make a good country if every decision made is made in the light of it.