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In a way, it would have been good if Osama bin Laden had been alive to see this day, Monday, Nov.3, 2014, more than 13 years after the 9-11 attacks. Then, he could have seen how little, besides mass death, those hijackings had “achieved”. After years of infighting with the owner of the old buildings, countless battles between officials in New York and more than eight years of construction, the building is open for business, with the advance team of Conde Nast publications moving in this day..
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The observatory, with the wraparound, nosebleed views, is not finished. Almost half the office space isn’t leased yet. But a baker’s dozen years after Sept. 11, 1 World Trade Center is up and running.
“It’s not so bad,” offered an architect who has a window facing the building.
Alas, it is.
Like the corporate campus and plaza it shares, 1 World Trade speaks volumes about political opportunism, outmoded thinking and upside-down urban priorities. It’s what happens when a commercial developer is pretty much handed the keys to the castle. Tourists will soon flock to the top of the building, and tenants will fill it up. But a skyscraper doesn’t just occupy its own plot of land. Even a tower with an outsize claim on the civic soul needs to be more than tall and shiny.
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