The future of the World Trade Center

We’ve shown you the past and the present of the World Trade Center area, and now it’s time for a look at the future.

wtc-future.jpgModeled by Patrick Griffin, and found in the Google 3D Warehouse, this model is an excellent look at what the future holds. As with the original WTC buildings, these are best viewed if you right-click and “hide” some of the matching buildings that are currently under construction.

Also of note is the stunning “Transportation Hub”, which will be build on the east side of the plaza. While there isn’t a model that I could find for Google Earth, you can preview a model of it that was created by user “Fish” in the 3D Warehouse.

transportation-hub.jpg

Google Earth: Remember 9/11

With the 10 year anniversary of the World Trade Center attacks coming up in a few days, we thought we’d look at some ways to use Google Earth to remember those lost in the attacks along with ways to look toward the future.

While Google Earth wasn’t released until nearly four years after the towers fell, a handful of models were built to show the towers as they stood prior to 9/11/01. By loading this KML file , you can see all of the towers that made up the original set of buildings, including the famous WTC 1 and WTC 2 buildings.

wtc.jpg

You’ll notice that some of the new WTC buildings, still under construction, are already visible in Google Earth. For the purposes of showing the area in a pre-9/11 state, you can right-click those buildings and Hide them. They’ll automatically re-appear next time you start Google Earth.

A more realistic-looking model was created by Patrick Griffin and can be found in the Google 3D Warehouse. His model, seen below, can be viewed by downloading this KML file.

wtc2.jpg

You can also use Google Earth’s Historical Imagery to view images of the twin towers by going back to 1997. The imagery isn’t in color and isn’t very sharp, but clearly shows the towers. You can also view imagery from 9/11/01, and see the smoke and dust as it floats out across the water.

smoke.jpg

There are also a variety of models that somewhat show how the attack unfolded, but none were particularly compelling. If you search the 3D Warehouse for something like “world trade center attack” you can find a few.

Google as Big Brother in the Forums

For example, as we cede control of money, traditionally a public function, to the likes of PayPal or Bank of America in the form of internet or credit card payments we run the risk of them unilaterally and arbitrarily removing access to this form of exchange, as in the case of Wikileaks. As commercial entities, they are not held to the same standards as a government of due process and can behave without much criticism or oversite, limiting access to given individuals to a critical public function at a whim.

But we run the risk of not just losing control over public functions but of language as well. In the novel 1984, George Orwell articulated the idea that the control of language was a way to control not just actions but thoughts. I.E. The loss of language can lead to a loss of freedom.

I work, study and breath in a very small corner of the internet, Google Places. In that corner, I interact with Google in all of their glory and weirdness.

In Google Places, Google feels a need to control language. Perhaps that is a good thing, limiting use of drug and sex terms in a public directory. But it requires any business that is using those terms to go to Google and request permission to use them. A very strange relationship for sure. And a slippery walk down the  slope of language control indeed.

But even stranger has been a recent “discovery” that Google is intervening, humanly or algorithmically, to prevent the use of some non controversial terms in the forums. Forums, unlike Places pages, are meant for “open” discussion.

The phrase that they are deleting? World Trade Center. That’s right, a word that is embedded not just in our language but in our psyche is being actively deleted when used in the forums. Their handling of the phrase is inconsistent, allowing it sometimes and deleting it on others. But delete they have. And on more than one occasion.

Google is a company that proclaims from the height of the highest newspaper hill that they are the essence of openness …. open systems, open technology, open source, open information. They use words like “transparency” and phrases like “Open will win” as mantras.

Yet for whatever reason, they can not abide by the the words “World Trade Center” being used in posts in the Places forums and see fit to act as arbiters of our language… very weird indeed.