And Not One Second Too Soon

Construction begins on the new World Trade Center, with an etching in plywood forms of the footprint of Santiage Calatrava's wing-clipped revision of his formerly soaring transportation hub. The cropping of the hub, like the overfortification and deracination of the Freedom Tower and Pataki's unilateral excision altogether of the International Freedom Center (I'm not sure whether it was the focus on "international" or "freedom" that did it) from the cite, was a bitter disappointment for those of us who saw in tragedy an opportunity to celebrate New York's singular spirit and beauty by creating something respectful but utterly daring, were shocked to see something audacious evolving through the design process, and then were crushed when a red tape tourniquet and an exhausting and ill-fated endeavor to satisfy every constituency in the city with a checkbook cut off the blood supply entirely.

Even so, I'm sanguine: I count this as a good day, indeed a fine day. It's time to build. Time to move on -- not to forget, but merely to ask: What's next?