The War Diaries

1 World Trade Center begins to enter the final stages of its façade construction more than a decade after the destruction of its predecessors. ©2012 Derek Henry Flood

New York- I was doing some writing yesterday about my experiences in Afghanistan and Central Asia in the months after 9/11. Delving into the assassination of Massoud, the death of an Italian colleague, meeting the Taliban, and all of the other random seeming things that led me to be in New York on 9/11 and in Afghanistan shortly thereafter gave me pause to reflect on the constant of time, the merits of what we call progress. In the near future the new WTC will be completed with tourists, wallets bulging with euros (if the euro survives), pounds, yen and yuan, trampling grounds that to me look more reminiscent of Abu Dhabi’s corniche than the considerably less imaginative original twin towers architected by Minoru Yamasaki in 1965.

4 World Trade Center makes its hulking ascent over lower Manhattan. ©2012 Derek Henry Flood

One World Trade Center, left, ascending toward the night sky alongside Seven WTC. ©2010 Derek Henry Flood

New York- The new tower in what was referred to as “the pit” for so many years in lower Manhattan is steadily rising above the construction fence that surrounds it. I’m still standing by my assessment that the entire complex will not be completed by the close of what what will be mega multi billionaire businessman cum politico Michael Rubens Bloomberg’s twelve years of rule over the city. While the city sleeps (or at least the financial district’s portion of it), One World Trade Center ascends toward the infinite or at least taller than Chicago’s Willis Tower (formerly the Sears Tower) which surpassed the original twin towers as the world’s tallest building in 1974 after their very brief reign as the world’s tallest in 1972-1973.