18 December 2006
Lower Manhattan and TriBeCa by night. For those of you who are not sure what Tribeca is, it's the triangle below Canal Street, between the Hudson River and Broadway. Half a decade ago, you would have seen two relly tall buildings in the right side of these pictures, but that floor space is now empty on the island as people still work out what to do with the space. Sadly for the families of those who perished, the longer people argue over what to do there, the more opportunity others have to strip funds from the budget for the memorials.
It is rather disgusting to think of stripping cash from the memorial for some pork-barrell project elsewhere, but that's politics.

In the realm of the special interests, the longer something takes, the less power it has, and people with different priorities take no shame in pulling resources from what may be the right, or honorable thing to do. It's very American to look forward, while remembering but not dwelling on the past. It's why we are good at overcoming challenges, but more prone than most to repeat mistakes, generation after generation, and administration after administration.

All the facts may some day come out, or they may remain as obtuse as the location of JFK's brain, but one thing we know now is that 60% of the companies whose main operations were in the WTC no longer exist. That's a pretty good arguement for keeping a copy of everything.