Monday, November 9, 2009

An American monument to Osama Bin Laden

The targets of the September 11th attacks were selected with great care. The Pentagon was a symbol of American military strength. The Twin Towers were a symbol of American economic strength and the ill fated Flight 93 is understood to have been headed towards the Capitol or White House as symbols of American political strength.

The damage those planes did to the country went far beyond the physical toll or the lives of the 3,000 Americans who were pawns in Al Qaeda’s monstrous game. While the goal was no doubt to inflict causalities and property damage, the real target was the symbol of American Exceptionalism and American strength and power. On that score, we have helped them succeed to a degree they could never have imagined by demonstrating our own fecklessness.

To understand what I’m talking about, one must go back to 1931, the year that CBS New York began the world’s first 7 day a week television broadcast schedule, Ford produced the last of its Model A cars and the new (current) Waldorf Astoria hotel first opened its doors. Something else happened that year… the Empire State Building was completed. In March 1930, when the United States was heading into the greatest of depressions, construction began on the building that would reign as the world’s tallest for 40 years. (Ironically it was dethroned in 1971 by the Twin Towers.) A little over 400 days after construction was begun, the building was finished and opened to the public. What makes this relevant is that with the technology of 1930, when movies were still silent, radio was the dominant form of entertainment (although only in 50% of the homes) and Zeppelin travel was just beginning to pick up, the Empire State Building was started and completed in just over one year.

Now fast forward to 2009 where we recently celebrated the 40th anniversary of sending men to the moon and safely returning them to Earth, where we have computers that fit in our pockets and even the least expensive car is made out of high tech polymers and can go 50,000 miles without a tune-up. It is in this dynamic technology driven environment that our fecklessness seems most obvious, where eight years after September 11th there is still a gaping hole where the Twin Towers used to stand. There is no doubt that even in his wildest dream would Osama Bin Laden have imagined that the Keystone Kops of American polity would be so dysfunctional that eight years after he sent his 19 terrorists into our midst, a monument to their accomplishment would still be standing… or not, as the case might be.

We have to be fair; construction could not begin on September 12. Bodies had to be recovered and debris had to be cleaned up. On May 30, 2002, a ceremony was held to officially mark the end of the cleanup efforts. So, 8 years is not quite a precise comparison, but 7 ½ certainly is. This couldn’t have been any more of a victory for Bin Laden if we had put an actual monument to him right at Ground Zero. While the onscreen version of the Keystone Kops made us laugh with their running in circles and general dysfunction, the Keystone Kops overseeing the rebuilding in this case leave us scratching our heads with incredulity. While there is no doubt enough blame to go around, from Mayor Bloomberg to the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation to the Port Authority to lawyers for families of victims to Larry Silverstein to neighborhood residents, the fact of the matter is that 8 years after the attacks that brought down the Twin Towers there remains a gaping hole, both in the ground and in the spirit of American Exceptionalism.

All of this can’t help but remind one of the Wollman Rink fiasco in New York 30 years years ago. For those who don’t remember, Manhattan’s Wollman Rink closed in 1980 for a $4.7 million renovation which was supposed to be completed by the end of 1981. Six years and $12 million later the project was still not complete, nor close to it. The city announced that it would cost several million dollars and two more years to complete.

Stupefied, Donald Trump with a letter to Mayor Ed Koch: “I have watched with amazement as New York City repeatedly failed on its promises to complete and open the Wollman Skating Rink.” He offered to take the project on, at his own expense, and in return wanted the profits from the concessions, which he promised would all go to charity. Rather than take him up on his offer, Koch, seeking to embarrass Trump for his hubris (I’m not sure that’s possible…) released the letter to the press. Somewhat surprisingly to him (Koch) the public did not react with the disdain he expected, or at least it was not focused on the target he expected. They had had enough of the Wollman Rink fiasco and were ready to let someone else take a shot. Reacting to City Hall’s suggestion that Murphy’s Law was in play with the Rink, the Daily News editorialized “Not good enough, Murphy’s not running New York – or he shouldn’t be until somebody elects him.” They added that after more than six years and a multimillion dollar debacle, you would think that the city would be jumping for joy. Not so. “City officials seem more interested in thinking up reasons not to go forward than in making a deal.” They said. In the end Trump did get his opportunity and he was indeed as good as his word. He reopened the Rink under budget and ahead of schedule, in less than one year.

This is not an homage to Donald Trump. Rather it is an indictment of what we seem to have become in any arena with even a fraction of public interest. This, like so many other projects is another example of prescience of Voltaire’s insight when he observed that “Perfect is the enemy of the good.” Be it building new power plants for a strained infrastructure, getting water for farmers in the San Joaquin Valley or drilling for oil on a postage stamp parcel in Alaska or replacing a handful of buildings destroyed by terrorists, it seems that it is impossible to accomplish almost anything of consequence. We have become incapable of doing anything in this country without giving every single person or group a say in how things proceed, regardless of how tenuous or tangential the nature of their connection to the project in the first place. There seems to be lacking a basic understanding that difficult decisions almost always leave some people feeling bruised or that lawsuits are not necessarily the most effective instruments through which to channel public policy.

To put this in perspective, Larry Silverstein, the developer who signed a 100 year lease for the World Trade Center only weeks before the September 11th attacks, and one of the cooks in the Ground Zero kitchen, rebuilt 7 World Trade Center, across the street from Ground Zero, in 4 years. Not only did he rebuild the 52 story building, but in a rather challenging economic environment, he leased 85% of it. There could be no starker a contrast to demonstrate what is and is not possible in America any longer. Because it was not part of the political quagmire that is the main WTC site, he needed only the approval of the Port Authority and as a result it was opened and working as a living breathing part of the New York ecosystem within 4 years. All of this while literally across the street sits a hole in the ground that stands as a monument to American fecklessness and gives our enemies another victory each day the sun rises and casts no shadow.

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