Thursday, October 15, 2009

The Ugliest Building in The World?

From the BBC, via Ann Althouse, we learn of the hideous structure, a hotel rumored to be the 'worst building in the history of mankind', currently being built in North Korea. Ann Althouse asks "Will it ever be finished?"

Frankly, I could give a hoot in hell about an architectural nightmare right here in New York City.

Eight years after the attacks of September 11, there's still a great big crater at Ground Zero.

Yeah., there's some stuff in it; a new train station and subway lines, a memorial, a few other buildings and some new construction. But there's no building above it. There's no soaring monument to the spirit of America resting atop The Pit. The toxic ruin of the old Manufacturer's Hanover Building across the street still stands, too. Where is the much-vaunted "Freedom Tower"? What, if anything, has actually been accomplished at Ground Zero?

Thirteen thousand more Americans went to Afghanistan this week, part of a surge which may see Prezident Obambi (if he has any testicles) send another 40,000 in the coming months. There's lots of unfinished business when it comes to the World Trade Center, it seems: Bin Laden is still alive (we think), the Taliban and Al'Qaeda still exist, Afghanistan and Iraq are still inhabited by uncivilized, murderous, mentally-constipated excuses for people who cannot appreciate the benefits of liberty and so continue to engage in terrorism... and the World Trade Center is still gone.

Eight years on, we're still fighting, but we're not building. We're still searching, but there's very little recovery. To add a little more perspective to the whole thing, this coming week, the U.S.S. New York, a warship built with steel recovered from Ground Zero, will enter New York Harbor to great fanfare, open to the public. I intend to visit when she arrives.

But, excuse me if I don't find this tale of Korean construction comedy all that funny, or interesting, and can't help but wonder why Kim Jong-Il can build his Taj Mahal and we can't build a goddamned office building.

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