With the cladding on the building nearing completion, it is easy to imagine what it will look like when finished. I personally believe NYC blew their opportunity to reclaim the skyline in an awesome way. This is too short, it took far too long to construct, and they allowed fear, politics, and greed to turn what could have been an amazing piece of architecture into a mediocre skyscraper.

When renders were released last year showing some significant design changes to One World Trade Center, many followers of the project were greatly disappointed. An ugly antenna replaced the modern spire, and the tapered edges of the base which reflected the isosceles triangles in the upper body of the building had been removed in favor of a boring and basic cube.

Although the official word was that both changes were related to either safety or maintenance, the truth seems to be neither. Esquire’s recent in-depth article might reveal the true reason for the changes.

As the estimate for completing the tower rose past $3 billion, the PA struck a deal in 2010 with a city real estate developer, the Durst Organization, to help finish, manage, and lease the tower: For $100 million, Durst received a 10 percent equity interest in the building, plus a $15 million management contract that gave Durst 75 percent of any monies saved by cutting construction costs up to $12 million, and a mere 50 percent of every penny cut thereafter.

To nobody’s surprise and David Childs’s despair, Durst found costs to cut, particularly at the top and bottom of the tower. The prismatic glass chosen to wrap the base of the building was replaced with a cheaper version, requiring that the corners of the tower’s first two hundred feet be squared off after those corners had already been tapered to meet the thousand-foot isosceles triangles of the curtain wall. Then Durst took its meat-ax to the tower’s 408-foot spire: By simply scrapping the radome — a sculpted shell of fiberglass and steel designed to sheathe the antennae and maintenance platforms atop the building — shazam! $20 million saved.

Read more: World Trade Center Rebuild Budget – Scott Raab Series On Ground Zero – Esquire

It is a shame that the centerpiece of rebuilding at Ground Zero has lost so much of its appeal because of greed, but perhaps good old greed makes this tower even more of an American symbol.

Completion date: 2014
Completed height: 2,073 ft
Floors: 121

This is now the longest relationship I have ever been in. I don’t want to jinx things, but I am happy, contented, and fulfilled. I consider him to be my greatest friend, and there can’t be anything much better than getting to spend your life with your best friend.

- Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, Honoring The Child Spirit

Photo Source

Photo Source

News Source

UPDATE: It should surprise no one that the topping out has been delayed. This building has been in an almost permanent state of delay since it began construction.

My whole life through, Christians have been telling me how to live, how to believe, how to love, how to encounter God. They have also told me on numerous occasions that I’m not doing any of those things correctly. Christians are usually the most vocal group against social justice, equality, gay marriage, science, peace, etc. Anything that pushes humanity along a more gentle pathway almost always seems to meet resistance from those who claim to be followers of Christ. Oh, the irony.

It has gotten to the point where I simply don’t want to be associated with it anymore. Maybe I’ve outgrown it, or maybe I have just hardened my heart over the years. Whatever it is, I can’t deny that I feel outright contempt for most things religious.

I still believe in God. I even believe in the message of Jesus Christ. I just wish modern-day Christians weren’t so concerned with the size of their congregation, the amount of money in the offering plate, and being entertained on Sunday morning. And why does it feel like Christianity has been hijacked by right-wingers who love war, revel in patriotism, and hate their fellow man? Maybe because it has been.

I might feel differently on down the road, but for now, I’m content sleeping in on Sunday mornings.

After noticing my blog doesn’t appear on Microsoft’s search engine even when using the direct url, I contacted Bing customer service to find out why. Here is a portion of the email I received:

Upon checking, it appears that your site did not meet the standards set by Bing to get indexed the last time it was crawled. However, we will be looking further into this issue along with the Product Group to review the content of your website for re-evaluation. We currently do not have an ETA for the update but please be assured that we will get back to you as soon as they become available.

Although Bing didn’t provide any additional details as to why my site doesn’t meet their standards, a quick glance at their help page revealed this:

Bing likes unique, quality content. Websites which replicate content, redirect users quickly, or provide little depth often don’t fare well in our results. Prolonged poor performance can lead us to delist websites to make room for quality websites.

And here I thought I was providing unique content in a lovely package. Guess not.

Thank God for Google.