October 16, 2001

4:42 AM

Towers of Light.
"Towers of Light is a proposal for a temporary art action conceived for downtown New York City in response to the September 11, 2001 tragedies"link from the good ppl at www.haddock.org
posted by monkeyJuice (27 comments total)

One of the best ideas I have seen yet.
posted by Oxydude at 5:26 AM on October 16, 2001

This was posted here before, but I can't find the link, so I guess it can slide.... heh
posted by rushmc at 5:48 AM on October 16, 2001

having watched from the side lines as double poster's get torn limb from limb, i ran this through the search fing'a'majig... maybe it was a link in a comment?
posted by monkeyJuice at 5:54 AM on October 16, 2001

It got a lot of press when the plans were announced, so I suspect the döppelpost came from one of those reports. The CreativeTime site itself is worth a look: they've done some wonderful public art projects in NYC, including the "Clouds" cropduster sky-writing piece which, alas, will stand out as a never-to-be-repeated reflection of less dangerous times.
posted by holgate at 6:22 AM on October 16, 2001

Well, here's the first thread, from way back on September 17. I personally seem to remember a second thread, too, but I can't find that one now.
posted by pardonyou? at 6:52 AM on October 16, 2001

I like this idea. But, and I hope I don't get assasinated for this thought, but I personally never liked the WTC towers. They were achitecturally hideous monstrosities. This does not mean I am glad they were destroyed... But I think something a little less ostentatious and a little less like a concrete box might be a good idea.
posted by bob bisquick at 6:59 AM on October 16, 2001

I believe the second thread was deleted.
posted by mrbula at 7:04 AM on October 16, 2001

Twinkle, twinkle, little star,
How I wonder where you are.
Looking up is no solution;
The sky's so full of light pollution.

"Careless and unnecessary lights hurt more than the night sky; they can disorient or kill wildlife, particularly migrating birds. According to naturalist R. R. Bjorge, warblers are attracted to bright lights in bad weather when they fly low. Sometimes they are attracted toward beams of light reflected off low clouds. Disoriented, the birds fly into buildings and get killed." Bad idea.
posted by Carol Anne at 7:08 AM on October 16, 2001

The page does say temporary, Carol Anne. I'm an amateur astronomer and have plenty of experience cursing the city light, but for the purposes of a memorial and given a temporary nature, I don't think this is totally a bad idea. As for the birds, well, I don't know about where you live but last time I looked some species of them were thriving in cities ;)
posted by holycola at 7:15 AM on October 16, 2001

Careless and unnecessary lights hurt more than the night sky

This is normally a valid point, but I am pretty confident that the amount of light in lower Manhattan is so absurd that any wildlife affected by light has cleared away from that area a long time ago. Just the lighting set up for the clean up makes the area as light as day during the middle of the night already, not to mention just the generally blinding amount of light Manhattan generates normally.
posted by bob bisquick at 7:22 AM on October 16, 2001

holycola: I live in Seattle--as do lots of crows, gulls, starlings, and"little brown birds."

I'd like to be able to see more stars in the night sky. More on the impact of artificial light in Joe Bower's Audubon article The Dark Side of Light.
posted by Carol Anne at 7:35 AM on October 16, 2001

hey, look, it's a repost :P
posted by Nick Finck at 8:06 AM on October 16, 2001

this idea looks great, but the "light pollution" would be crazy. All the surrounding areas would be flooded with light, not to mention being blinded everytime you look in that direction. i can just imagine people trying to navigate to work while being blinded by these immensly powerful lights. let alone looking out their office window to be blinded once again. however, there's probably some way to do it without causing such problems. a great idea, but a little impractical? i still like the idea of just building a park where the wtc stood.
posted by physics at 8:40 AM on October 16, 2001

You fools! Don't you know what you're messing with here?!

I'm calling Raymond Burr right freakin' now!
posted by Kafkaesque at 8:50 AM on October 16, 2001

the second thread that people are referring to is my fault, if you were curious (it deals with the architectural strengths and weaknesses of the WTC towers as well as what future directions new york might take in the aftermath). by the way, i agree with the folks who think that the "phantom towers" project would introduce some really awful amounts of light pollution.
posted by moz at 9:01 AM on October 16, 2001

My problem with this idea is that the only reason it would work is that the air in NYC is polluted. The beams of light would be visible because of smog. This is good?
posted by Steven Den Beste at 10:09 AM on October 16, 2001

I actually posted this a week or so ago, but it got taken off for being a duplicate, so if you think it was here twice it was.
posted by holycola at 10:26 AM on October 16, 2001

It's a little too much like the Cathedral of Light at the 1936 Nuremburg rally for my taste.
posted by kirkaracha at 12:09 PM on October 16, 2001

It's a little too much like the Cathedral of Light at the 1936 Nuremburg rally for my taste.
posted by kirkaracha at 12:10 PM on October 16, 2001

Steven,

Actually, I think it works due to the natural water vapor in the air more than the air pollution but I'm sure the air pollution helps.
posted by ArkIlloid at 3:01 PM on October 16, 2001

The giant beam of light shooting out of the top of the Luxor hotel/casino here in Vegas is quite visible--they say pilots over L.A. can spot it at times. And water vapor is minimal, though I'm sure it exists. There is some pollution--mainly carbon monoxide--but nothing like what NYC boats, I'm sure.
posted by rushmc at 4:25 PM on October 16, 2001

*puts on flame retardent suit* speaking for those of us who apparently live in the BFE of the internet and had not known about this link:

the griping about reposts.... when will it cease? one person's repost is another person's new and welcome discovery, especially on a high traffic site like this. do you feel smug because you've seen ever single mefi post since day one and can spot a repost a mile away? get over it... if you know you've seen it, just move on. unless it's another AYBABTU or "tourist guy" link, in which case, aaaaaargh! ;)
posted by nyomi at 11:50 PM on October 16, 2001

Nice...half the replies to this link are about whether it was a double-post. Sheesh...

MonkeyJuice, thanks for this link. I had heard about this proposal on CNN, but couldn't find a link to a website. Personally, I like this idea...now. I didn't like it when I first heard about it about a week after the towers fell. I thought it was too soon to do something like this. But my first concern would be about whether the families of the still missing would approve. This visualization of those towers may still be too painful of a reminder to them. I doubt that this idea will get approval, although I would really like to see it.
posted by Sal Amander at 12:44 AM on October 17, 2001

Nice...half the replies to this link are about whether it was a double-post. Sheesh...

Well, look at it this way. If it's a double post, all the people who were particularly moved to comment would have done so in the previous thread. I think that might be part of why double-posts are annoying. People who made a good point before are obliged to either forget about it, thereby in some way invalidating it, or to belabor the same point, exponentially increasing the double-ness until it creates some sort of matter-antimatter explosion and Keanu Reeves will be forced to star in a bad action film about it.

And we don't want that, do we?
posted by Kafkaesque at 9:03 AM on October 17, 2001

tangent: does anyone else think the rebuilt twin towers should contain five buildings; one on the end lying on its side and the middle about twice as tall as the others?
posted by crustbuster at 12:50 PM on October 17, 2001