A Hole in the Heart of Manhattan

The Hole in the City's Heart: "The wreck that still stands tall and the pit that still sinks deep sum up the troubled history of ground zero. A site of horrific tragedy whose rescue and cleanup operation was a model of valiant efficiency, ground zero turned into a sinkhole of good intentions where it was as difficult to demolish a building as to construct one.

For all that has not yet risen from the ashes, there has been considerable sturm und drang, "like a novel, a cheap novel," said Daniel Libeskind, the master planner for the site. The combination of big money, prime real estate, bottomless grief, artistic ego and dreams of legacy transformed ground zero into a mosh pit of stakeholders banging heads over billions in federal aid, tax breaks and insurance proceeds."

I said to a fellow office worker the other day that I thought it a disgrace that five years after the attacks there is still nothing but a hole in the ground where the towers once stood. That was before I read this article. Now I'm just plain ashamed, for all involved.