The world changed nine years ago.

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Thank you Cats! We will never forget the day the world changed.

Claudia Rosett writes today that on 9-10-2001 there was a "community center " in lower Manhattan .
It was the Twin Towers.

The World Trade Center was, as some of its chroniclers have said, a vertical city. It was a place of shops, cafes, restaurants, news stands, many offices and a huge plaza where in summer there were concerts, and people lunched outdoors around the fountain. Its basement concourse was the place where in 1982, as an aspiring journalist, I engaged in the oxymoronic business of calming my nerves with a cup of coffee, at one of the multitude of coffee shops, before going across the street for a job interview. It was the place where over many years I came and went from subway stops that let out into the World Trade Center complex, where you could buy everything from t-shirts to airplane tickets. I bought my favorite briefcase there, won a raffle for a bread-basket, picked up shampoo, toothpaste and dishracks; I met friends and business contacts for lunch there, walked through it on the way to more distant shops and restaurants, and interviewed people in the offices above. When I moved back to New York in 1997, after almost a dozen years working abroad, my editor took me to lunch in the North Tower, more than 100 stories up, at Windows on the World.

In one of the lower buildings of the complex, there was a huge and marvelous Borders bookstore, with a big poetry section, a café, and benches outside. It was a great place to play hookey from the office. It’s gone. It’s all gone.

The Rosett Report Remember the Twin Towers: Here’s the Community Center, Sept. 10, 2001 (http://pajamasmedia.com/claudiarosett/remember-the-twin-towers/?singlepage=true)

It was a small city in and of itself. All it missed was living quarters.

The world did change that day, as did my life. In some ways for the better, but in most ways not.

Scott, I would love to hear your personal story one day.

I just want to say that I am very proud of my sons who have both served in Iraq. One left the morning of December 6, 2009 after he dropped his wife off at the hospital. She was about to give birth to their second child. He dropped her off, in labor, only to leave 20 minutes later to go to camp to ship off to Iraq.

To my sons. I am proud of both of you. You both said 9 years ago today, that you would serve this country to protect your baby brother (who was not yet born) and your little sister who was only 8 at the time.

I am so proud to be the mother of 2 young men who risked everything they had to protect us.

I just want to say that I am very proud of my sons who have both served in Iraq. One left the morning of December 6, 2009 after he dropped his wife off at the hospital. She was about to give birth to their second child. He dropped her off, in labor, only to leave 20 minutes later to go to camp to ship off to Iraq.

To my sons. I am proud of both of you. You both said 9 years ago today, that you would serve this country to protect your baby brother (who was not yet born) and your little sister who was only 8 at the time.

I am so proud to be the mother of 2 young men who risked everything they had to protect us.

J, you should be proud. I am for you.


Even though I do not agree with everything that goes on in our country, like how our taxes are spent, how it's run sometimes, I am always proud to be an American. I have an American flag on my house. Always have, always will.

We all should remember the pre, during, and post, World War II patriotic pride and honor. And try to make our forefathers proud.

God bless America. And all those who defend her.

Claudia Rosett writes today that on 9-10-2001 there was a "community center " in lower Manhattan . It was the Twin Towers.Hello tom:

And, there'll be another one called Cordoba House... It'll be vibrant too.

I'm surprised you used this occasion to take another jab at the planned mosque.. I'd rather remember our fallen.

excon

I did remember the fallen... and much like when I object stongly to 'Pastor' Phelps using his religion to stomp on the memories of fallen heroes ;so too I will not be silent while "Imam" Rauf does the same to the victims of 9-11.
The 'Cordoba House ' if built will be another Rabat;typically built after a successful ghazva .It will not be a 'cultural center'.

Hello tom:

And, there'll be another one called Cordoba House... It'll be vibrant too.

I'm surprised you used this occasion to take another jab at the planned mosque.. I'd rather remember our fallen.

excon

Cordoba House will REMIND everyone Islam was responsible for 9/11 every day it exists IF its ever allowed to be built.

Since you brought it up... there is no SANE person that was even remotely affected on 9/11 that will see it any differently. Christians, Jews, Hindus, Budists NONE worship at a Mosque.



Lots of good people died that day, Lots of Heroic First responders died saving lives and not all died immediately, many died of complications from the debris, some very long drawn out and slowly.

The real Heroes that day were those who gave their all helping the intended victums to safety, many times becoming victims themselves without giving a second thought to their own safety.

America will not forget them.

I can never forget and do not want to. My Dad used to say that about Pearl Harbor. I am in the line of thinking of Tom and smoothy - the mosque should not be built anywhere near Ground Zero. What a mockery it would make of the deep tragedy and sorrow that came from the attacks.

I think having built nothing there for 9 years is a bigger mockery. It's like saying they won.

I think having built nothing there for 9 years is a bigger mockery. It's like saying they won.

Nothing is better than an Islamic Victory Symbol to remind everyone Muslims were responsible... and rub it in day after day, after day.

I would pissed too if there was an Islamic Victory Symbol built on Ground Zero, thankfully that's not happening.

I think having built nothing there for 9 years is a bigger mockery. It's like saying they won.

That is a mockery all right. A mockery and an indictment of bureaucratic red tape and inertia. It took 1 year and 45 days to complete the Empire State Building in the middle of the depression.
It's like saying socialists have won in NY .

Socialists? What does that have to do with anything?

I would pissed too if there was an Islamic Victory Symbol built on Ground Zero, thankfully that's not happening.

Well, as far as today's news... they haven't officially changed their plans.

We can only hope they do however. If Islam cares about mending fences and building bridges... they need to stop this overt provocation ASAP.

Because ANYTHING they do at gound zero WILL be seen as a further assult on America.

Easy , the reason the Empire State Building went up so quick was because it was the product of capitalist competition. The snail's pace of the reconstruction of ground zero is primarily the result of bloated socialist bureauratic road blocks that have slowed the project until recently when everyone woke up and realized that if they didn't move soon the 10th anniversary next year would be commemorated in a hole in the ground.

Can you point me to examples of the "bloated socialist bureauratic road blocks that have slowed the project"?

Everyone is frustrated: Al Qaeda Also Fed Up With Ground Zero Construction Delays | The Onion - America's Finest News Source | Onion News Network (http://www.theonion.com/video/al-qaeda-also-fed-up-with-ground-zero-construction,14138/)

The biggest ,most bloated bureaucracy in the NY area ,the Port Authority is most responsible for the delay. And that's just one of the agencies involved . The Federal Transit Adm ,the State Dept. Transportation ,the MTA ,the Lower Manhattan Construction Command center ,City Hall ,all the First Responder agencies and their unions have all been complicit in the delay .

Isn't that every large city in America every day? You haven't shown where specifically it affects the reconstruction so basically it's simply your opinion.

It's the fact . Bureaucratic delays and red tape has been the hallmark of this project . It is not a problem with every city. The Sears Tower took 3 years to complete. The Santa Monica Freeway bridges took just 66 days to rebuild after the 1994 earthquake collapsed it .It takes mere months for us to put up sports arenas.

The only reason there is any movement now in the reconstruction is because people around here are sick of the bs .

Really ;it would take too much time to detail the garbage that has gone into this ,but it includes such absurdities as design competitions , politically correct museums and learning centers,arguments over rents , more design changes ad nauseum ,turf wars between the competing agencies... and on and on. Heck ;it took them 8 years to figure out how to best demolish the damaged Deutsche Bank building... and it still will not be down a decade after the attack . Meanwhile the cost of the demolition of this single building has ballooned from
$75 million to $202 million. Just to take down a building!

Suffice it to say that the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation was set up to centralize... to be an extra layer of bureaucracy ,to expidite the project ,and distribute $2 billion in funds for the project .Even the NY Slimes thinks it should be disbanded.

Meanwhile Mayor Bloomy pontificates about the right of America's Imam to build his victory mosque which no doubt will get the fast track .

Thank you Cats... I wish to thank all those who have served this country. Many condolences to the ones who died in the planes and in the Buildings.

God Bless my son. A military man who joined right after College and is making a career of it. Bless the parents whose sons and daughters, husbands and wives who made the ultimate sacrifice.