Don’t Rebuild the World Trade Center

Wall Street Journal | September 19, 2001 | HOLMAN W. JENKINS JR.

[jlogajan]

If you don't own the property. Shut the h*ll up.

[mdittmar]

on patriotically misguided investors who fell for the "Buy America" nonsense.

I am buying,I am patriotic and there are bargains.Is it "misguided" to buy low and sell high!

only savvy traders who dumped their soured positions

Soured positions, I have to assume means selling at a loss, is it "savvy" to buy high and sell low?

[Bikers4Bush]

New Yorkers and only New Yorkers should have any say in this at all.

Newspapers and liberal hacks should keep their opinions to themselves.

I personally hope they rebuild them even taller than before.

[lovearkansas]

I must agree with jlogajan. If you don't own the property you have nothing to say about it.

[sendtoscott]

If you don't own the property you have nothing to say about it.

If (when?) it becomes a matter of giving the re-builders govt support, as a show of determination or something like that, it will become something everyone has a right to think over for themselves. If the owners take no govt $$, then and only then is it their business.

[eno_]

I generally hate it when governments and hack nests like the Port Authority "make statements." with taxpayer money. But in this case I think giving the terrorists the finger architecturally is just about right.

[Jack Black]

"New Yorkers and only New Yorkers should have any say in this at all."

I'd say the owners and insurance companies have a large say in it. As soon as they ask for (and get) taxpayer money from the federal govt. then all taxpayers have a say in it.

[NativeNewYorker]

Panty-wearing slobs who couldn't invest their way out of a paper bag have no right to tell others how to develop property.

Rag-headed Berserkers with delusions of grandeur do NOT make the zoning laws in Sodom.

NOT rebuilding the site with a 100+ story tower (or two) would be tantamount to surrender.

[shrinkermd]

This is a well thought out editorial. It is hard to disagree. There really is no reason to build 100 story office buildings to cram thousands of people into. In the age of information and the internet it is hard to justify the enormous public expense of a "trophy" office building.

As to the patriotism arguement, what war has ever been won by building or rebuilding an office building? We are in for a 10 year war of attrition where the costs and casualties are going to be significant on both sides. Better to focus our money and efforts on rebuilding the economy and winning that war.

[537 Votes]

NOT rebuilding the site with a 100+ story tower (or two) would be tantamount to surrender.

If you want it, you pay for it.

How about, as a way to thumb our noses and/or give the finger to the Taliban, we give the people of this country more freedom?

How about we let law-abiding Americans keep and carry guns?

How about we give Americans freedom of choice in schools?

How about we let Americans donate as much money as they want to the political candidate of their choice -- just like the First Amendment says?

How about we call American servicemen home from godforsaken places like Kosovo and Bosnia?

How about the federal government's Taliban-style bureaucrats get out of our faces, and stop telling us we can't eat eggs sunny-side up, or flush our toilets only one time, or set the rules for private golf associations.

How about the mullahs of the federal government regulatory agencies at least let Americans have steak knives with which to eat their dinners on airline flights?

What good is throwing up a pair of stupid buildings to show we're not afraid -- when meanwhile we're actually so scared that we won't trust our own citizens with steak knives? Don't you think the Taliban will get the message from that?

Instead of throwing up a pair of stupid buildings, why not build a spiritual monument to freedom -- by actually making Americans freer?

One way to do that would be to give tax rebates for the $20 billion you wish to spend in rebuilding the WTC. That would run about $250 per taxpayer -- about the size of Bush's rebate check, by the way.

Let's do it next year, and let freedom ring.

Take that, Taliban!

[NativeNewYorker]

I agree with your sentiment. Please don't misunderstand mine.

I was merely saying, as someone for whom downtown Manhattan has been a part of life since birth, that I do not want to surrender it, even symbolically, to the bastards.

Private developers will fight each other for the OPPORTUNITY to invest in a new structure. And free enterprises will pay BIG bucks for the privilege of being in it.

[Dan Day]

If you don't own the property. Shut the h*ll up.

You miss the point.

The point is that while the property owners can do what they like, the prospective *tenants* may have a very different outlook on the matter.

I doubt the property owners would want to build two more 110 story buildings only to have them remain mostly empty in perpetuity because the financial players have decided there's no good reason to all gather in one spot anymore (and good reasons *not* to).

[shuckmaster]

Aw, Shucks!

[tobygan]

Check NYS bond rating: http://www.osc.state.ny.us/reports/budget/2000/1-00.htm 49th of 50th. Only with fed $.

[Arthur McGowan]

You evidently didn't actually read the article. He mentioned more than once that the reason the WTC existed in the first place was government subsidies--in other words, the WTC was a government racket from its very inception. Not only is such corporate welfare objectionable on moral grounds, the skyscraper is as obsolete technologically as the steam locomotive.

People started crowding into Manhattan and other city centers before the invention of the telephone. The bandwidth revolution is making high-density urban areas more and more obsolete.

[spectre]

Rebuild? Line up the tenants first.

sw

[metal_war]

I do have a question. If the markets were closed immediately upon the attack happening, who were the folks who did all that major insurance company (and other issue)short-selling before the attack even happened?

Germany is investigating this question now; shouldn't we be? Or are we in some way afraid to even ask that question?

One other thing: Did anyone else hear that many people did not show up for work in those buildings on the day of the attack? Coincidence or prior knowledge? Any truth? If not, any evidence against the rumor? Thanks.