re: #103 sagehen

You mean the national flags of the victims?

The World Trade Center didn’t get that name by accident; it’s operated by the Port Authority and was always intended as a Center of World Trade. There’s some big financial firms that had a few floors each, but there was also hundreds and hundreds of 300 sq ft offices that were each the US Branch of some developing nation’s export industry. And companies whose business was facilitating deals between these various nations — instead of every African nation having to send a trade representative to every Central American nation, each country could have one trade rep each all getting together in New York.

(of course, the new building is going to have like ten floors of Conde Nast, but whatever.)

Good point. It’s true the Freedom Tower will be a few larger companies at first, but that will get most of its space filled and get it doing what is supposed to do: Make Money. The business of the WTC site is business. The memorials are important and the dead must always be respected and remembered, but for a place dedicated to trade its Profit First, Last, and Always.