Posted 8:26 AM by Gene

Meantime a lead force among those AH-chi-text-TYURE cri-TICS who gush over outwardly sloping walls, or walls of Lego and Reynolds Wrap, and roofs that leak, complains because a lowly planning board chopped 200 feet from a certain prospective masterpiece, making it look less like an overblown toothpick, though not much, and issues a statement from the depths of his uncontrollable anger:

[T]he greater sadness here has to do with New York and how the city sees itself. Both the Empire State and Chrysler buildings, built during the Great Depression, were celebrated in their time as emblems of the city’s fortitude. The Freedom Tower, our era’s most notable contribution to the skyline, is a symbol of posturing and political expediency.

Never mind the STARCHITECT seems to have built a mere platform for King Kong, and not a very comfortable one; and while we know some people likened the Chrysler Building early on to a swordfish, it lasted, unlike toothpicks. And if AH-chi-text-TYURE cri-TICS had their way we'd have had Tinkertoys at Ground Zero; and one guesses the idea of that hole in the ground, the symbol of a nation paralyzed, is not altogether disagreeable to this cri-TIC.

(Via the infernal AHTSJournal)