The Rebuilding of Ground Zero, Part 110

While much of the focus is on the Cordoba House project two blocks north (despite the fact that two other mosques are within walking distance of Ground Zero), progress continues on the Freedom Tower. And yes, the whole mess with the Cordoba House has gotten to the point where President Obama not only had to chime in, but then had to play it both ways. What a way to take a principled stand, where the US Constitution protects the proponent's right to build, just as surely as it protects the rights of everyone else to complain about it being built. That's one of the foundations of this great nation.



But as to why so many people are opposed to the project, maybe it has to do with the fact that so many people have gotten their information from a media that continues to botch the facts. That goes for Charles Krauthammer too, who ought to know better.

Moreover, the same people who claim that the mosque doesn't belong near Ground Zero (that is when they aren't conflating matters by claiming the mosque will be in Ground Zero) don't care that there's a strip club about the same distance from Ground Zero or that millions of square feet of office space are set to rise from Ground Zero - the space where nearly 3,000 people were murdered.

Despite all the focus elsewhere, the Freedom Tower is growing about three stories every week.

Right now, it's 34 stories tall, and the tower cranes are starting to peek over the Battery Park City buildings, which means that it wont be long before the tower itself is visible from across the Hudson River.

The Port Authority's photo stream is here. This photo shows the WTC Memorials and the footprints coming to fruition. If you're at street level, you can't see what's going on around the site because of the updated blue wraps that deter people from looking into the site. That includes the Santiago Calatrava designed transit hub for PATH.

Most of the work around Ground Zero is still below ground level, but 1WTC (Freedom Tower) and 4WTC (diagonally across the site) are rising with new steel added daily.