Gothamist: Twin Towers Still Standing in Beijing's "World Park"

dimes

Wed, 09 Jul 2008 22:56:02 -0500

Heck no thats they aren't offensive. If anything they evoke sentimentality. I like them. Now if they were rigged up to smoke and spit plumes of fire....now THAT would be offensive.

NannyState

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 21:31:39 -0500

Definitely the towers were erased from the opening credits of The Sopranos the season after '01. I thought it was both respectful as well as an eerie whitewash. I would have left them in. What's funny is that while the towers are gone, they are still iconic of New York.

Spiritof76

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 19:35:30 -0500

The Twin Towers should have been put right back up the way they were...period. Not a chance. The 9/11 families would have fought that to their dying breaths. "It's hallowed ground!" They want nothing on those footprints. I rather hope Bush won't go to the Olympics. The man is an embarrassment in every corner of the world. Lock him up in the White House until January 20.

mocanlagunas

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 15:25:22 -0500

hahaha, what a moron!

Maybrick2001

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 14:48:35 -0500

The shameful part is that at the real site there is nothing but a hole in the ground "7 Years LATER"! The Twin Towers should have been put right back up the way they were...period. (With the necessary improvements needed of course.) The Freedom Tower is a joke as is the handling of the construction...or lack of construction. I would hope that China does not take down the replica. I consider it a sign of respect that they left them there and that is a good thing.

JacqueMehoff

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 13:56:41 -0500

nah, worse is if they put in the Statute of Liberty between them. what is that brown building between the WTC and ESB?

AvenueHebrew

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 13:29:44 -0500

If anything is in bad taste, it's sticking them right next to the ESB and the Plaza Hotel. That's just poor geography.

Spiritof76

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 12:43:40 -0500

Are we supposed to erase the towers from history? Isn't that more disrespectful? Isn't that what some TV show did in its opening credits soon after 9/11? I think it was Friends, NYPD Blue, Law & Order or something like that. I think New York New York in Vegas is far more crass than these models.

kapusta

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 12:34:33 -0500

it's painfully obvious according to the photo that the replicas of the twin towers in the "theme park' in Beijing are completely out of proportion,completely wacky and their creeping me out visually, ascetically, and morally. fyi...the model of NYC at the Queens Museum depicts NYC as it was in 1992. Of course it is absolutely in proportion visually, ascetically, and morally(not to mention a wonderful work of art).

ides_of_march

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 12:25:39 -0500

As long as they keep the Saudis from flying any model planes near them, what's the problem?

1987porsche944

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 12:19:40 -0500

I love this replica. Forcibly removing them would be another stab to my heart. The Chinese director Jia Zhang Ke has some great footage of this attraction in his movie The World - the theme park also includes replicas of the Eiffel Tower, the Taj Mahal and a lot of other international sites. It's actually very cool. I hope they don't take the towers down. Who would start this ridiculous campaign?

thedroog

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 12:17:11 -0500

so 'infinite emails flooded inboxes citywide last night' requiring gothamist to write a tepid post about, as others have stated, what amounts to a non-story? do you guys just cover any piece of crap 'news' story that comes across your desks? what a waste of resources.

dr zippy

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 12:15:19 -0500

There's something about this pr campaign that sounds pretty shady. It's as if someone is trying to create a rift between the US and China.

jgee

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 12:08:32 -0500

I think it is more disrespectful to try to erase them from everything.

JenChungsBra

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 12:07:49 -0500

The only thing wrong with them is that they're probably covered in lead paint.

esquared

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 12:04:24 -0500

Maybe the Freedom Towers should be made in China.

Kingpin

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 12:02:14 -0500

Obviously this Dan character has too much time on his hands, those replicas are frankly impressive... they're not the shoulder-high ones you usually see at attractions like that, but are tall enough to dwarf a 2/3-story building at least... and very accurate... Why on Earth would it be disrespectful to leave them standing? It's just the same sort of nonsense we've seen before, with people saying all shots of the Twin Towers should be erased from movies. That isn't respect, that's called a whitewash.

zodak

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 12:02:04 -0500

smokedgouda is right.

ides_of_march

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 11:57:36 -0500

When a relative dies do you purge all their photos from the family album and shred them? That seems to be the logic at work here.

Dave Hogarty

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 11:55:29 -0500

Know what's disrespectful? That giant damn hole in the ground between Church and West Sts. that has persisted for SEVEN YEARS. I like the Chinese reproductions. Is it offensive to be nostalgic?

S.D.

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 11:54:31 -0500

Wow, this is a non-issue as it is hardly disrespectful. IMO, They actually look pretty cool.

UnrepentantFenian

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 11:52:44 -0500

First off, non-story. As evidenced by the unanimous comments below it. Secondly, I agree with everyone who has posted so far. As someone who has no love for China, they have done nothing wrong in this case. Bitch about them executing people or being the world's largest polluter. There is plenty of stuff China does wrong - this is not one of them.

djwerdna

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 11:52:02 -0500

the towers are totally not to scale. i agree with the comments posted here. nothing wrong with having these replicas around.

nomnomnom

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 11:44:03 -0500

I think all these past WTC towers should remain. It's kind of a nice memory of things past. Before everything went to shit.

cuntry

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 11:42:56 -0500

same idiots who get mad at rachael ray's scarf.

edEx

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 11:42:27 -0500

for what it's worth, anyone who thinks this is disrespectful they themselves should be erased from mankind.

zpk

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 11:40:55 -0500

It should also be noted that the twin towers remain standing as a part of the Panorama at the Queens Museum.

Toby von Meistersinger

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 11:40:43 -0500

For what it is worth, the Queens Museum still has the WTC as part of the Panorama of NYC. Although I don't think they have updated it since the early 1990s.

dr zippy

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 11:40:06 -0500

Aren't the towers still standing in the panorama at the Queens Museum of Art? The better question to ask is why someone is promoting this totally manufactured "controversy".

smokedgouda

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 11:37:17 -0500

Who cares if they have replicas of the buildings. It's not like they have little planes going into them or people jumping out. This is not news.

JacqueMehoff

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 11:37:00 -0500

that look's pretty cool. I don't think I've seen beijing with a blue sky before. Is it to scale?

ianmac47

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 11:34:12 -0500

Are we supposed to erase the towers from history? Isn't that more disrespectful?