American Ground: Unbuilding the World Trade Center | William Langewiesche

American Ground: Unbuilding the World Trade Center | William Langewiesche | Dissecting the Pile

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American Ground: U...

	American Ground: Unbuilding the World Trade Center William Langewiesche North Point Press, 2003 - 240 pages average customer review:based on 42 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Selected as one of the best books of 2002 by The New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Boston Globe, Los Angeles Times, and Chicago Sun-Times

Within days after September 11, 2001, William Langewiesche had secured unique, unrestricted, round-the-clock access to the World Trade Center site. American Ground is a tour of this intense, ephemeral world and those who improvised the recovery effort day by day, and in the process reinvented themselves, discovering unknown strengths and weaknesses. In all of its aspects--emotionalism, impulsiveness, opportunism, territoriality, resourcefulness, and fundamental, cacophonous democracy--Langewiesche reveals the unbuilding to be uniquely American and oddly inspiring, a portrait of resilience and ingenuity in the face of disaster.

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Fascinating

There have been many books published in the last three yers about the building of the WTC, the attack of 9/11, the collapse of the building, the architecture, the decisions, the rebuilding, and so forth, but only one book about what went on at the site immediately following the collapse of the towers.

William Langewiesche is an excellent essayist and reporter, and managed to both situate himself in the middle of the rebuilding- the only writer to do so- and to be a neutral enough observer that he was able to tell the story from all perspectives. The public story- the heroism of the firefighters and police, the harmony on the site- dosn't quite hold up in Langewiesche's telling. We see internecine fighting, looting, distrust, and outright hostilkity between different groups competing for control of the site and for glory in the minds of the public.

But we also see an extraordinary effort by almost all concerned, and an operation in which public and private organizations came together to do an amazing job of cleaning up the site in record time. We also see the City of New York rising to the challange, brushing off Federal attempts to control the site, knowing that the city has more experience as disaster recovery and cleanup in its numerous contractors and building officials than the whole of FEMA. City officials and contractors came together and mapped out strategies and divided up work without waiting for approval from higher up authorities.

An excellent piece of reporting and interpreting. Highly recommended.

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Dissecting the Pile

The "pile" as is came to be known, was the rubble left behind by the collapse of the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center. A mess. A huge mess. The who's, what's, why's and hows are accurately discussed in this book about that mess--who took control of it, and what was done with it. A different look at Ground Zero and those who were thrust in charge of this unique operation. An insight at the interests of those who really had control of the "pile"--the firemen, the police, and Port Authority police. A fine addition to the real story of 9/11.

one of the best 9/11 books

This is a beautifully written and utterly compelling book about the fall of the Twin Towers and their subsequent removal. Langewiesche captures the characters involved well, and he fills the book with fascinating details (like the guy who swims towards the towers when others are frantically catching ferries and boats to escape). A very fast read, this terrific work is part journalism and part history, and it's one of the best two or three books related to 9/11 that I've read.

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