16 Acres (2012) User Reviews

Superb Documentary

[douglasgreenberg · 10/10 · 29 May 2014]

Sadly, the story of 9/11 is one that's often been stolen - by politicians using it as a backdrop for endless grandstanding, by conspiracy theorists convinced of cover-ups, by real (and fabricated) heroes seeking lionization, and by so many others who have manipulated it for their own agendas.

Now, finally, a single documentary gives us the real story. "16 Acres" is a documentary on the decade-long planning process of rebuilding the World Trade Center site. It shows the massive number of stakeholders who together create a cacophony of input. Design decisions must be made in a tug-o-war between victims' families, residents, the media, an alphabet soup of govt agencies, politicians and private interests.

As one person says, it's an impossible job. Not only because of the number of voices. But because the public expects to do with buildings, what buildings just can't do - heal a wounded nation, renew American confidence, console those in grief, etc.

Watching it all unfold - you might hope that for once, people could just unite and be understanding of one another. Instead, sadly, they doggedly pursue their own interests, as if wearing horse blinders to everyone else.

The process is ugly. But in the end, it produces something beautiful. Not because the design is most ideal. But because it represents compromise. A truly American compromise, which could only have come from the manifold voices, all shouting at each another until finally something emerged.

Now, thanks to this documentary, that is what 9/11 will forever mean to me. My highest rating.

Too much bickering not enough engineering and construction

[murray_johnc · 12 September 2021]

Sixteen Acres was the most frustrating, depressing, documentary I can recall having watched in a great many years. I'm not blaming Richard Hankin for this 95-minutes of tedium - Mr Hankin was only reporting accurately on the tiresome machinations of a conflicted bunch of politicians, bureaucrats and oppotunists. I'll give this documentary points for just one thing, it certainly cleared up the mystery of why the heck, with all the advantages of state-of-the-art computer design and 21st century construction technology, it took no less than 14 years to replace the twin towers! When I obtained a blu-Ray disk of this documentary, I was naiively hoping for a detailed guided tour of architect Daniel Libeskind's design, perhaps some brief analysis of the reasons competing designs were eventually passed over, and then on to the main event with plenty of boots-on-the-ground footage of the nuts and bolts and methodology of the Freedom Tower's actual construction crew. Instead I watched a long diatribe of assorted politicos and cognitively dissonant bureaucrats who were more intent on climbing onto soapboxes than making the necessary compromises to get the reconstruction underway. Did Rosaleen Tallon have something remotely like a functioning cerebral cortex - or just an enormous pair of lacrymal glands - as she stridently advocated for sixteen Green Acres of memorial garden, in a quavering, manipulative speech that might have caused even the late Elizabeth Taylor to blush with embarrassment.

The early 1950's maxim that a camel is a horse designed by a committee certainly does not apply to any committee of 21st century New Yorkers; alas, that prototype camel would have died of old age while committee members still continued to bicker back and forth over "one hump or two", the most tasteful colour scheme for the camel's hide, or whether or not Salvador Dali should design its legs.

By historical contrast, despite its reliance on 1920s technology, the Chrysler Building at 405 Lexington Avenue got started in May 1929 and was completed only twelve months later. The Empire State Building, at Number 20, West 34th Street, began on March 17, 1930 and was completed in a record-breaking 1 year and 45 days. Even allowing for the systemic decay and indolence that afflicted New York by the nineteen-sixties, Minoru Yamasaki's twin towers broke ground in 1966 and averaged two-to-three stories completed each week. Not too shabby. Anyone who makes excuses that the financial meltdown of 2008 delayed the Freedom Tower project, should remember that the Chrysler and Empire State buildings were constructed in the aftermath of the worst financial disaster in American history.

Given that attacks on the Pentagon and the twin towers were acts or war, requiring bold, pragmatic, decisive responses, let's try this thought experiment: How would Donald Trump have gotten this whole rebuilding project off the ground?

Here's my suggestion of a 7-pillar approach: 1. Construct an enormous roulette wheel with 1776 slot positions.

2. Put out request-for-tender to the world's leading architectural firms.

3. Select 10 of the most promising design submissions, then disseminate architects' drawings and building specifications over the internet.

4. Allow the public ninety days to air their differences, then hold a referendum.

5. Allocate segments of roulette slots to each of the 10 designs in direct proportion to the number of votes each design received.

6. Spin the wheel and see where the ball lands.

7. The wheel's decision to be FINAL - no boycotts, appeals, or legal challenges allowed!

The reality - that tragic, divisive mess dragging on and on until the tower finally opened to the public on June 11, 2018, is UnAmerican; it does not bode well for America's future as a world power.

Many comparisons are made between September 11, 2001 and December7, 1941. The USS Arizona is now a national monument and a war grave, but it did not officially become so until 1962. The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor was an act of war that required America's immediate response - unhampered by emotion or petty political bickering. The Arizona was allowed to remain at her final resting place only because the magazine explosion had damaged her hull beyond economic repair. Had this not been the case, the battleship would have been refloated and towed to a repair shipyard, like her sister ships Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Tennessee. The 1,177 officers and crewmen of USS Arizona deserved to be treated with all due respect and the bodies of the deceased deserved burial with full military honors. But the inescapable fact remains, you don't launch a global war by immediately declaring your most strategic naval base to be a sacrosanct shrine, solely to commemorate 2,403 fallen Americans in perpetuity.

Fast-forward 70 years. Suppose that second aircraft, the hijacked United Airlines Flight 175, had failed in its mission to destroy the South Tower. Would the eventual response have been to retain the South Tower as is, while using minor revisions of Yamasaki's original design to rebuild the North Tower? Or would the decision have perhaps been made to demolish the South Tower as well and start over from scratch?

In conclusion, I can't help but wonder if the signing of the Instrument of Surrender aboard USS Missouri would ever have happened if isolationists and conscientious objectors - the Rosaleen Tallons of that epoch - had still held sway over the Press, Congress, Oval Office and Pentagon?