The Lexicographer's Rules

Shadows to Fall, Literally, Over 9/11 ‘Wedge of Light’. Architect Daniel Libeskind and everyone else seems to hope the site of the the World Trade Center will be covered in sunlight. Looking at the sketches, you could get the idea that it will be a bright, open space, a park-like atmosphere for frolicking. Now it has been pointed out that the “wedge of light” will be covered by shadows of other buildings. That’s the least of the reasons to dislike this WTC plan. Every big-headed white-out sniffer who barfs up buildings for New York City pulls the trick of acting as if their work stands alone. In the sketches and renderings they use the mid-day sun and bright pastels for coloring their work and diminish the presence of arriËre-plan structures by fading them or making them gray. The result is that New York City appears to have a sky-reaching horizon like it was planted on plains of Kansas. Not until the buildings are underway does the dim truth become apparent. My prediction still stands: The street-level charm of the new World Trade Centeer buildings will be about as uplifting and meaningful as the Port Authority bus terminal. That’s because recesses in the ground in New York City are catch-alls for trash, human and otherwise. Combine that with the unbeautiful functionalism of the exposed concrete walls which hold back the Hudson River, the transportation hub, the tourist gaudiness, and the ghost-town downtown atmosphere during non-work hours, and from the six-foot view, you’ve got the makings of a street-level architectural disaster, no better and probably worse than the one it replaces.

Navy Turns Over 15,587 Acres on Vieques to Department of the Interior. So when does the drilling for oil and cutting of timber start?