Cut the Conspiracies

Tragedy

Another 9/11, and like clockwork we have another round of conspiracy theories about it being an "inside job" or "deep state action." I cannot begin to tell you how much this bullshit pisses me off. I worked on the rebuilding of Ground Zero. I was in New York working on the plans for rebuilding when the pits were still burning with the fires of Hell itself. I saw that same Hell in the eyes of the people I was working with, listening to their stories, stories that even now, I can’t repeat without coming apart myself.

I was in New York to see the walls of posters desperately pleading for someone, anyone to have news of the missing.  Every day, I walked past the makeshift shrines and candles lit as prayers and beacons of hope.  I saw the despair, and I saw the love, the love of survivors gathering together, holding on to what little pieces of hope they could grasp.

And it is because of the people I knew, especially the original project engineer, that I came to understand why the buildings fell the way they did.  Of course the collapses looked like an implosion, because, if you were going to implode them, you would blow the same members that melted in the fire.  Members, which by the way were nothing more than standard open web joists, that were not designed to be exposed to flame the way they were on 9/11.

Further, as a person who was there in the immediate aftermath, the statements of the buildings “falling straight down” are laughable, as the giant gashes in the sides of surrounding buildings show.  The zone of total destruction in New York City was as large as most cities entire Downtown.  Of course there were odd survivors in the cityscape.  Just like the devastation caused by a hurricane, some buildings are almost unscathed when others are obliterated.

These so called “facts” that prove it was an inside job piss me off.  Not only because of how ridiculous they are, but for how much pain they inflict on the survivors and those who lost loved ones.  Spreading the 9/11 conspiracies inflicts exactly as much harm and chaos on them as the conspiracies on Sandy Hook cause agony in the parents of the dead children.  There are real people being hurt every day by this crap.  

But most of all, the conspiracy theories piss me off because they suck all the oxygen out of the room for the REAL scandals and REAL evils that happened both before and during the events of that tragic day.

Evils like the fact that EVERY SINGLE PERSON who breathed the air in Lower Manhattan that day literally was inhaling steel shards and pulverized concrete. That was not smoke or even a benign dust that people were breathing, it was a toxic soup of lung shredding fibers of a collapsed building. Forget the asbestos, most of those who were caught in the toxic cloud will die from silicosis and emphysema long before the mesothelioma will get them.  And worse, no one on the news, or in city government warned any of New Yorkers about this.  They let them continue to breathe in this debris for days without protection.  There was no evacuation of people downwind, no general distribution of gas masks.  Nothing.  They just let them breathe unprotected.

Evils like the fact that that SEVENTY PERCENT of first responders from 9/11 have some sort of illness, that can be directly tied to the events of 9/11.  Even if the city didn’t warn the citizens, you would think they would want to protect the people in their direct employment.  But they didn’t, they let them stand unprotected in billowing clouds of some of the most deadly particulates ever inhaled by humans.

Evils like the fact that our Congress COULDN’T EVEN AGREE on an aid package to help those who sacrificed their health to save a small handful of lives.  It literally took almost 10 years to pass a bill that provided lifetime care for those who were on scene working to save lives.  And in that 10 years, many of the emergency personnel died or went bankrupt while waiting for the government to finally do the right thing.  Even then, it took Jon Stewart, a comedian, to finally shame the Congress into acting.

Evils like the fact the Rudy Giuliani DELIBERATELY GROUNDED the rescue helicopters on 9/11 because he was more concerned about how much they might cost to replace if they were damaged than the lives of the over 2000 people he doomed with that decision.  When the buildings were designed, evacuation above a fire was supposed to occur from the rooftop assisted by special rescue helicopters owned by the city.  That’s why there were helipads up there.  But Giuliani’s decision prevented the evacuation of thousands, all because he was more worried about the replacement costs of helicopters than human life.

Evils like the fact that the World Trade Center, being a government project, was LARGELY EXEMPTED from building code.  The stairs were narrow, few in number, and sheathed in nothing but drywall.  This meant that when the planes hit, the lifeline of every person above the fire was instantly severed.  Even though many people on the upper floors were not hurt in the attack, they were still doomed because there was no way out.

Evils like the fact that in World Trade Center 7, so many safety measures were SCALED BACK or eliminated that the building collapsed after only 8 hours of being on fire.  Yes, it suffered severe damage from the collapse of WTC 1 and 2, but it shouldn’t have fallen, except that the fireproofing was “too costly” and less expensive solutions needed to be found.  Those less expensive solutions depended heavily on a wet fire suppression system that got severed along with all of the water lines in the area when the towers came down.  As a point of fact, 90 West Street, built just after the turn of the 20^th century, and grossly over-engineered, because they were new at high rise construction, burned for 2 full days without any structural failure.  In fact, the floors that didn’t catch fire from the flaming debris falling off the Twin Towers were virtually undamaged.  This doesn’t prove conspiracy to destroy WTC 7, it shows how much more we value money than life.

Evils like the fact that Larry Silverstein fought tooth and nail to BLOCK ANY memorial on the World Trade Center Site because of the amount of revenue it would take out of his pockets.  He said repeatedly that, in his opinion, the greatest memorial that could ever exist for 9/11 would be rebuilding the towers exactly as they were before, and not “wasting space for people to go cry.”  He said that at a conference I attended on the reconstruction.  He followed that up with saying, “people can cry in the cemetery or in their homes, they don’t need to do it on my property.”  As a side note, he held a long term lease on the World Trade Center, but the property belongs to the citizens of New York and New Jersey. 

There is no reason to go around talking about fictional evils when the REAL ones are so horrifying and heartbreaking. If there is a conspiracy, it is to spread fake conspiracies so that no one pays attention to the actual evil, and no one tries to do anything to correct the actual wrongs.  It is to keep people from suing the former mayor for his rapacious decision to not risk his helicopters, to keep people from demanding tall buildings have extreme safety measures to protect the inhabitants, to force the government to actually pay for the health care needed by probably a million or more people exposed to toxic clouds.  The conspiracies keep people focused of fake evil so that they won’t demand real, and expensive, solutions to actual evil.

If you are so concerned about 9/11, stop spreading false narratives and start demanding that people actually DO SOMETHING, DO ANYTHING to help those who still, 16 years later, suffer daily from the attack. Tell you Congressional delegation to approve help for ALL those who were caught in the debris.  Tell the building departments that we must have REAL safety for tall buildings, not just in case of attack, but for any disaster, natural or manmade, that might occur.  Demand that PEOPL start to be valued above profit for shareholders.  Demand REAL change.

Stop tearing out the hearts of those who lost people by telling them their own government killed their loved ones.  Stop spreading a narrative that gives a pass to the real evil in the world.  Do something that will make a difference.  It’s been almost a generation since 9/11, but we can still use it as a catalyst to make the world better, more human, more loving.  

A Plague of Festivals

Uniformity

New York City, the last bastion of uniqueness, is falling victim to the blandness of Generica.  Go to Times Square and try to find something not corporately branded.  If Giuliani had allowed the hookers to remain, I’m sure that nowadays they would have corporate sponsorship and credit card readers.  (I can imagine Sephoria and Chloe investing in a line of perfectly groomed, elegantly dressed escorts walking 42^nd Street.)

But that isn’t what concerns me.  Times Square sold out a decade ago, and most New Yorkers avoid the place unless they have out of town guests who insist on seeing it, and are too afraid to go unescorted. 

What concerns me is a new phenomenon that I have not noticed in my previous visits or when I lived there.  Generic street festivals have sprung up all over Manhattan.  Last weekend, Madison Avenue was shut literally from Madison Square to 83^rd St.  (It may have been closed further, but that was the distance I experienced.)  Also, Broadway was shut throughout  NoHo and Mulberry Street in Little Italy was almost impassible from the booths set up on both sides of the street.

I say the street fairs were generic because they had the same collection of funnel cake vendors, hot dog stands, bead and scarf booths, and crappy art.  There was no soul and no character to them.  All of them were virtually identical.  At the time I wondered why.

Unfortunately, now I know.

I found this information on Quora today.  This was posted by Jay Gurewitsch the owner of Arcadia (www.arcadianyc.com):

“These pestilential plagues that are visited upon our streets far too often are almost entirely run by one company; Clearview Festivals. They contract with various "non-profit groups" who officially get the permits from the city in exchange for a tiny percentage of the take from the vendors.

These vendors, by the way, are overwhelmingly based outside of NY for tax purposes - so they charge and collect no sales tax, pay no real estate tax, no NY corporate tax, no payroll tax, no commuter tax, nothing that could possibly reimburse the city for all the lost revenue the businesses on those streets suffer whenever the fairs are set up.

My tens of thousands of taxes paid as a business owner in Chelsea ($50K+ in real estate tax alone) go to subsidize a street fair and street vendors who steal thousands of dollars PER FAIR from me and all my neighbors - and there is seemingly NOTHING we can do about it.”

In our lust to corporatize everything, we erase all character and individuality.  Everything is a brand, or more frighteningly, a uniform identity.  The City is becoming a copy of a copy of a copy, blurred to indistinguishiblilty and lacking any semblance of originality.

Is there any hope for authenticity?  When will we as a nation again demand it?  When will we stop giving our souls away for profit?

  

Setting up for the "Street Festival" on Sunday Morning.

The Ecology of Fear, New York Edition

Fear

I just returned from a trip to New York City.  I spent the weekend there, showing a group of my architecture students the city.  We saw some of the greatest architecture in the world.

We also saw a city gripped by paranoia.

I lived in New York in the months immediately following 9/11, and while the city was far from normal at that time, people were moving forward with the indomitable strength of character that only a New Yorker can have.  While the rest of America was still convulsing, New Yorkers were quietly going about rebuilding their lives.  They were looking at rebuilding what was literally a smoking hole in the ground.  (I remember it still smoking as late as February.)  They did not cower in a corner; they faced the nightmare head on.

The one thing I will always remember from my time in New York was that strength, that refusal to be bowed by horror.  Strangely, I did not see that on this weekend, a bare week after the 10^th anniversary.  I saw police everywhere, barricades, and ultimately an intimation of fear that I never saw in 2001.

After September 11, there were barricades all around Lower Manhattan, but the barricades served the purpose of keeping people from falling into the holes in the torn up streets or out of the buildings that hadn’t been checked for structural integrity.  They were there to keep people safe in the most literal sense of the word.

Now the barricades are back, but not to keep people from falling into gaping wounds in the earth, they now keep people from the statue of the Bull on the north end of Bowling Green, keep them from the steps of Federal Hall, keep them from walking freely, instead of like cattle on the way to the slaughter.

I know there were protesters all over Lower Manhattan, and the U.N. Opening Session in Midtown, but those are normal September events.  I have been taking students to New York City during September for the last several years, and I’ve never seen this before.

The police are beating people in the streets, there are guards on every floor of the hotel, black motorcades moving through the city, security forces with guns visibly at the ready. 

Are we so afraid of protest and dissent in this city that we block all expression of it?  Are the Masters of the Universe so frightened that they cannot allow anyone to express their American right of protest?

The fear that I saw was not a fear in the general population, it was a fear OF the general population.  As citizens we are de Facto terrorists, guilty until proven innocent.  The very ideals which are the birthright of every one of us is under threat. 

I saw the protesters first hand, and if they are an existential threat to America, then so is the Tea Party.  I say this, not out of any snarkiness, but as an actual point of fact.  The signs I saw the protesters carrying could have been carried by either end of the political spectrum.  In fact, the ends have bent discourse in this country so far around that the far left and the far right have become indistinguishable.

I saw a sign saying, “End the Fed.”  Very left, very right.  Since I have not been watching the news lately, the only way that I could even determine the end of the spectrum protesting was from their appearance.  I assume from the amount of dreadlocks, Rasta hats and Patchouli that the protesters were advocating from the left.  Swap them out for a group of old white men, and you’d have a Tea Party Rally, you wouldn’t even have to change the signs.  Apparently, on the ends, the only reference you have is context.

That said, there was nothing frightening about the protesters, unless you are a billionaire oil tycoon, then perhaps visions of Paris circa 1793 or Moscow of 1918 might be running though your head.  If you don’t believe in the freedom of speech, in the right to assemble, to ability to petition the government for redress, then what occurred this weekend in New York was a Fuselian scene of deepest nightmare.  The flag no longer hangs from the New York Stock Exchange, and barricades don’t allow you to get within a couple of hundred feet of the place.  In that one act, the financial barons that run the city showed their rejection of all that makes this country great.

The fear that gripped the city this weekend was fear by the powerful of the powerless, which is a recipe for actual revolution.

It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. 

I took this photograph in September 2008.