It’s taken more than five years, but construction has finally begin on the Freedom Tower, which will rise admist the ashes of the World Trade Center:
NEW YORK, Dec. 19 — The first 25-ton steel column for the new Freedom Tower was installed Tuesday at Ground Zero, another milestone in prolonged efforts to build a new office tower to replace the World Trade Center.
The 31-foot-high white steel column, painted with an American flag and the words “Freedom Tower,” was picked up by a crane and set into place on the southern edge of the planned 1,776-foot building. Politicians and workers at the site cheered as the column was installed shortly after 11:30 a.m.
“Today the steel rises, the Freedom Tower rises from the ashes of Sept. 11, and the people of New York and the people of America can be proud,” said New York Gov. George E. Pataki (R). A second column, about a foot taller and covered with signatures from steelworkers and politicians in Virginia, was installed a short time later.
Officials hoped to raise a third column later Tuesday.
In the next two weeks, more columns will be set around the perimeter, including two covered with signatures of Sept. 11 families, steelworkers, architects and politicians. Officials said the signature-free column that was installed Tuesday was a slightly different length than the others and was long ago scheduled to be installed first.
There are those who have said, and will continue to say, that we shouldn’t do this. That we shouldn’t build another tall building in New York that can only be another tempting target for the merchants of death. They are wrong. Rebuilding on the site of a great tragedy, while at the same time respecting the memory of those that died that day, is exactly what America needs to do.
I look forward to the day in 2011 when I can look across New York Harbor and see this:
