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Korea, check, India... looks on target, we'll know soon. Austin, all indications look good, but man I can shed the feeling of a massive potential embarrassment if the circuit isn't done on time.
Korea, check, India... looks on target, we'll know soon. Austin, all indications look good, but man I can shed the feeling of a massive potential embarrassment if the circuit isn't done on time.
How can you have such little confidence? If anyone is gonna make the effort to put in some hard graft with the combination of technical superiority and the only nation able to always throw money at something to get it working.......
Korea, check, India... looks on target, we'll know soon. Austin, all indications look good, but man I can shed the feeling of a massive potential embarrassment if the circuit isn't done on time.
How can you have such little confidence? If anyone is gonna make the effort to put in some hard graft with the combination of technical superiority and the only nation able to always throw money at something to get it working.......
If a war were to break out in Austin, a war that required a race track to be built, I'm sure we'd have it taken care of likidi split. A GP however...? How many skyscrapers have been built since 2001 after the World Trade Center attacks? Well nearly a decade later we still have a huge hole in the ground in downtown Manhattan, that's why I can have such little confidence.
Korea, check, India... looks on target, we'll know soon. Austin, all indications look good, but man I can shed the feeling of a massive potential embarrassment if the circuit isn't done on time.
How can you have such little confidence? If anyone is gonna make the effort to put in some hard graft with the combination of technical superiority and the only nation able to always throw money at something to get it working.......
If a war were to break out in Austin, a war that required a race track to be built, I'm sure we'd have it taken care of likidi split. A GP however...? How many skyscrapers have been built since 2001 after the World Trade Center attacks? Well nearly a decade later we still have a huge hole in the ground in downtown Manhattan, that's why I can have such little confidence.
I thought the design was that theres supposed to be a hole in the floor, two adjoining holes, as a remeberance.
Moreover if they are planning to build something there, firstly it is only 10 years since the first plane hit, a skyscraper is a lot more then an instant decision.
Secondly, skyscrapers went up quick before cause they are built outward from the centre. Trying to build a skyscraper inwards surro unded by the busiest streets in the world surrounded by skyscrapers, bit harder to do then starting from a plain field. Imagine all the material needed and time do build a skysraper in normal circumstances, let alone getting all the material/manpower/equipment through new yorks busiest streets.
By Tom Leonard in New York 5:06PM BST 10 Sep 2009
Six and a half years after ambitious and highly symbolic designs were unveiled for the devastated 16-acre site in lower Manhattan, a combination of political wrangling, financial rows, engineering complications and the economic downturn have meant there is little to show for all the talk of standing up to terrorism.
Only one of the five towers planned for the Ground Zero site has broken ground. The frame for the 1,776-foot so-called Freedom Tower is now several stories high but, humiliatingly for some, the landmark building has been renamed One World Trade Centre to make it more marketable to clients.
With New York facing a glut of office space, there is no firm date for the planned three office towers while the fifth building – a performing arts centre – has received neither a finished design nor financing.
Even the memorial to the 2,752 people who died after al-Qaeda hijackers flew two passenger jets into the Twin Towers has been dogged by delays.
Larry Silverstein, the site's developer has gone to an arbitrator to renegotiate his lease with the Port Authority, which owns the land, after months of negotiations.
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Janno Lieber, who runs the project for Silverstein Properties, said further delays to the office towers "would really be a stain on New York's reputation and image".
Many fellow New Yorkers appear to agree. A poll last month by Quinnipiac University found that two thirds of local people think even the memorial – let alone any of the towers – will not be ready in time for the 10th anniversary in 2011.
A quarter of those polled said they felt "ashamed" by the slow progress – the highest number to give that answer since the question was first asked in 2006.
"We're getting fed up with the continual lack of progress at Ground Zero. And we think it's important that there be some signs of movement this year," said Maurice Carroll, director of the university's polling insistitute.
Sheldon Silver, the speaker of the New York Assembly, whose district includes Ground Zero, said the terrorists targeted America's business capital.
"We committed eight years ago that we were going to rebuild bigger and better than ever. If we're not going to do that, then we're sending a terrible message," he said.
"It has become increasingly clear that New Yorkers should be embarrassed by the debacle that is represented by the failure of government officials to have successfully rebuilt Ground Zero," said Barry LePatner, a New York construction lawyer.
"Unfortunately, the only conclusion that can be drawn from a careful study of their actions at this important site is an attitude that the public be damned."
But Chris Ward, executive director of the Port Authority, insisted work is now progressing, with around 1,000 workers on the site each day.
Employing some of the flowery language that surrounded the birth of the project, he said the site was no longer a "pit" but now a "sense of rebirth".
Mr Obama will mark the anniversary with a visit to the Pentagon, also targeted by the hijackers, where he will tour a memorial completed last year.
March 11, 2010 By Carter B. Horsley
In an "op-ed" article in today's edition of The New York Times, New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver write that the Port Authority of New York and Jersey and the developer of the former World Trade Center site, Larry Silverstein "must make a choice" to compromise by tomorrow on their disputes to move forward with the rebuilding of Ground Zero, "or will they allow their dispute to return to arbitration, condemning the World Trade Center site to years more of delays?"
"The latest stalemate" now "threatens to overshadow and overwhelm all of the progress," they wrote, adding that "With capital markets still tight, Mr. Silverstein is seeking credit assistance from the Port Authority for two of his skyscrapers; but the Port Authority is willing to fully back only one of them."
"Because the new World Trade Center has been designed so that all the buildings share key infrastructure," they continued, "an indefinite delay for one building would delay the entire eastern side of the site. That would mean the loss of 10,000 construction jobs and leave us with an enormous empty lot where we should have a revitalized Trade Center. That outcome is unacceptable."
"Several months ago, the two of us spelled out a compromise. It's a deal that's still within reach," they declared in the article, adding "Our proposal would require Mr. Silverstein to invest significantly more equity and take on more risk, and the Port Authority to provide more temporary credit assistance to move construction forward on both towers. Mr. Silverstein has been receptive to this plan, but the Port Authority has not, couching its opposition as an effort to protect taxpayers and preserve its ability to pay for other transportation and development projects in the region. Its continued intransigence, however, comes with its own price."
"Delays at the site have already cost the Port Authority tens of millions of public dollars. Not only would further delays cost much more, but rent proceeds from a thriving World Trade Center would provide money for the Port Authority's other transportation projects around the city, including Moynihan Station and a new passenger rail tunnel under the Hudson River. From the beginning, the redevelopment process was always intended to be a public-private collaboration. We need a reinvigoration of that partnership now more than ever....The future of Lower Manhattan - and a piece of our national pride - depend on it."
In an editorial on the opposite page that valued New Jersey commuters and the memorial for those lost at Ground Zero way above the long-range needs of the city, The Times argues that "the Port Authority has already agreed to help finance one of his three buildings, but it should be very stingy with the rest," adding that "it has many other, far more important demands on its funds, including upgrading bridges, tunnels and airport terminals." "The city," the editorial continued, "certainly doesn't need three new office buildings immediately," adding that "the last thing a battered downtown needs is a next of empty office buildings."
"Ground zero," it said, "is no longer the depressing place it was a few years ago. The important public structures are starting to take shape - the memorial to the victims, Santiago Calatrava's birdlike transportation hub, and 1 World Trade Center (the centerpiece once known as the Freedom Tower), 20 stories high and climbing."
According to the editorial, the authority "must keep its finances safe for the region's transportation facilities and concentrate on making sure that the memorial is available to visitors by Sept. 11, 2011....For Mr. Silverstein and the mayor, that memorial - and not simply 4 million square feet of extra commercial office space - should be the goal."
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