(I couldn’t copy the photos I’m referring to, but go to my Newsvine page to see the two photos of Shanghai. One from 1990 and one from 2010)
Take a look at these pictures, and tell me what you see? I see the development of an entire city (not just two buildings) that took only twenty years. Is Shanghai that much farther advanced technologically? Maybe in some aspects, but considering that only 100 years ago the horse and buggy was still a means of transportation for us, probably not.
How can Shanghai create an entire city in 20 years, and it’s been 9 years and we STILL don’t have our Twin Towers? (or the ‘Freedom Tower’, the name doesn’t matter)
It amazes me AND breaks my heart at the same time. Just the thought that in other parts of the world an entire city can be constructed where we cannot replace a landmark and a pinnacle of our freedom. I wrote a song on September 11, 2008 and my words still mean a lot to me: “I was there that day, when the earth stood still. It took my breath away, and it always will”. Did we forget what they did to us? Lets recap; They hijacked jets filled with fuel and a few hundred passengers and flew them directly into the World Trade Center towers (as well as other targets) killing, no MURDERING thousands of innocent people!
Our replacement structure should have been built IMMEDIATELY!
I reside in NJ but work in New York City along with millions of other people who are reminded on a DAILY BASIS that our once proud beacon of lower Manhattan is not here. Oh yeah, I know that construction has started and I believe we’re up to 15 floors or so….WHOA! look out now! If we compare that to Shanghai’s development we get laughed at. 9 years, 15 floors. Is that the response that we wanted to show the world? Yeah, sure we took other measures as a response, but what about the actual structures that they took away, the fabric of our daily lives, THE TOWERS! What about them?
How come we didn’t show the world our TRUE RESILIENCE!
I’m writing about this today because a friend shared these pictures with me and it broke my heart all over again. To see such amazing advancements that other cities have made, and we here in the United States first, then directly here in New York (concrete jungle where dreams are made of) ‘The Greatest City In The World’ are forced to play second fiddle. I’m not looking to raise a debate over this because honestly, our time to show our stuff has came and went. Our 9 year anniversary is just a few months away and we still don’t have anything to show for it. My only concern at this time and place is, WHY? Why did we let politics and bureaucracy get in the way of our true American spirit? Why did we not seize the moment to show the world who we really are? I believe that if we erected towers right away, that would have had as much effect as capturing Bin Laden
(oh wait, we didn’t do that either..)