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Up from Zero: Politics, Architecture, and the Rebuilding of New York

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What's so great about this book?

Is it because the book carefully analyzes
pros and cons on the history of the area?

Is it because the book brings alive the political
games of Port Authority and LMDC?

Is it because the book broadcasts the competition
of world-class architects?

Is it because the book records the behind scenes
of super architects' dirty cat fight?

Is it because the eye of the book is not only from
top-down, but also bottom-up?

Is it because the book tells what the role of developer is in NY?


Well, the book surely answers all of above-mentioned questions. But the real drama of the book is in what the New Yorkers did together to make this site memorable and meaningful (both symbolically and practically); a strong testimony to the victorious civic life against the destructive terrorists attacks.

Paul Goldberger bites that drama with such tenacity and rigor that it's really difficult to put down the book once in hands. The book actually mentions that NY had to wait several months before speaking of rebuilding because nobody dared to speak when the scars of terrorism was just around the corner. What a tragic yet promising story!

The heart of the matter is that in the turmoil of rebuilding energy arises a revelation how a great contemporary city -such as New York- claims it's identity. It's a city of ideas. It's a city of debates. It's a city of interactions, and it's a city of generating hope from the deepest despair of human affairs. "It's a city of Victors, not Victims"

I would like to believe that Goldberger, as a New Yorker, simply could not resist speaking of what he had witnessed. The book is mind bothering, yet, heart beating read.

Who would have expected from Paul Goldberger to produce such a restraint in personal opinion and - instead - factual, informative, surprisingly objective, and detailed history of the Ground Zero's struggle to rebuild the WTC in NYC? It is a story involving distribution of billions of dollars by those having executive power (combined with exemption from NY City building code) giving the politicians ("Emperor" Pataki, the Director of LMDC Roland Betts - a close friend and business partner of President George W. Bush, ...) opportunities to establish arbitrary restrictions and allowances regardless of the cost and usefulness, to arbitrarily select the participants of design process regardless of their merit, ability, capacity, and a public interest, etc. They created (initiated and developed) opportunities for favored participants in the design process to gain from their political and not entirely appropriate, but self-serving decisions, which - at the end - bit them, after confronted by a reality check, which exposed their selfishness and ignorance.
Supplementing illustrations are in "Imagining Ground Zero" - ISBN: 0847826570.