New York Turns the Page from 9/11 Trauma
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg assures that reconstructing the World Trade Center evidences the fact that the city has finally turned over a new leaf, for a fresh new chapter after the decade of trauma since 9/11.
Speaking only days before the 10 year anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks, the mayor on earlier in the week described lower Manhattan's recovery and facelift as "one of the greatest comeback stories in American history" according to New York Daily News.
Predictions that New York couldn't recover from the impact of 9/11 had been proven otherwise, he claimed.
"That was the fear then that the bad old days were coming back ..., that the city would go to seed. As we know, I'm happy to say, none of that happened. In fact it has been just the opposite," he said in a speech to local community leaders. "New York has come roaring back faster than anyone thought possible."
Bloomberg believes that the half-finished World Trade Center office project at the site of the destroyed Twin Towers is the heart and soul of an refreshing and lively neighbourhood, which now has the highest residential population since the 1920s.
He revealed that the best companies re-entering the area, as well as families settling there, had shown their belief in the city.
They returned "knowing that the area would remain a terrorist target, but they refused to live in fear and they knew that New York has the finest police department in the world", he said.
The main tower at the new World Trade Center will reach 541 metres, becoming the tallest building in the country when completed. Tower number two will be slightly shorter, followed by the much shorter towers three and four.
A memorial consisting of two sunken fountains at the exact spot where the Twin Towers used to stand is complete and will be opened on Sunday.
"We will never forget the devastation of the area that came to be known as Ground Zero - never," Bloomberg said. "But the time has come to call those 16 acres what they are: the World Trade Center and the National September 11 Memorial and Museum."