If it had been up to me, the World Trade Center towers would have been rebuilt to look outwardly exactly as they did before they were so violently stolen from us. It's galling that terrorist thugs could alter our skyline. And it has always bothered me that we conceded to it.

Make your own life time more simple get the home loans and all you want.

I was in Manhattan that morning and have been here most days since then. I disagree. We should have rebuilt the towers. One storey taller, perhaps a bit stronger and not left a necropolis. We have a mosque in place of our towers. We have a Saudi flag as a memorial in that field in Pennsylvania and we will weep before we finally have a chance to rectify the disasters we have visited upon ourselves by always being moderate and sad rather than forceful and brave. the old towers were that, they were forceful and brave, not limpid like tears old and yet to fall.

Ms. Gelinas writes:

"They stand in the background, as they always did for so many New Yorkers, elegant geometry defining the open space around them, abstract against the intricately rendered brickwork and fire-escape lattices that make up the foreground."

The last ten years don't seem to have cured New Yorkers of the habit of writing like this. She puts things beautifully, but didn't the World Trade Center towers "stand in the background..." for New Jerseyans, too? We had a better view of them than you New Yorkers did, after all.

Revelation 18:19 NKJV - "They threw dust on their heads and cried out, weeping and wailing, and saying, 'Alas, alas, that great city, in which all who had ships on the sea became rich by her wealth! For in one hour she is made desolate.'"

I lived and worked in Manhattan from 1959 to 1971 (didn't want to leave!). I returned several times to see people and places; then I returned the year following the 9/11 attack to absorb the entirety of the horrific act. It was grimly apparent that it was gone--wouldn't be back. The decision to record the evil destruction, not by building a replacement, but by creating an evocative, peaceful physical reminder seems entirely appropriate as a permanent reminder of that energized locale. I definitely will be back to absorb the totality of meanings.