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It has been formed not only by the reasoned response to a documented threat but by an amorphous, open-ended anxiety. Another set of stairs leads back down to Greenwich Street: more barriers and guard booths, complemented by a herd of NYPD vehicles and, no doubt, a flock of lurking surveillance cameras. Below the railing, the lifeless moat of Cedar Street curves toward a parking lot filled with stacked shipping containers that serves as a command center for the Port Authority Police. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church, designed by Santiago Calatrava. Obediently, I detour up the stairs to Liberty Park and the construction zone for St.
![shards of war vox shards of war vox](https://www.giantbomb.com/a/uploads/original/0/1992/2276366-vox901.jpeg)
At the corner of West Street and the fantastically misnamed Liberty Street, I’m thwarted by a formidable set of obstacles: bollards linked by steel bars, a stack of metal fence segments that have been chained together, and, for those who are slow to take a hint, a sign reading NO PEDESTRIAN ZONE. Here and there, rows of pointy steel traffic-stoppers break through the asphalt like dragons’ fangs. The feeling of contemplative satisfaction fades as I circle the edge of the plaza, which is dotted with prefabricated police booths. Two decades ago, the Twin Towers were attacked because they were seen as emblems of capitalist arrogance the complex that replaced them is a monument to overweening caution. You can feel it in the grid of gray stone and gray glass, in the orderly arrangement of planes, and in the swarm of security guards. Or perhaps it’s because visitors sense the enduring spirit of this place: timidity. That might be due to the solemnity of the memorial’s design or the explicit border between this sacramental zone and the profane city beyond. Even on less sultry days, people slow their pace it’s rare to see someone striding purposefully across the plaza bearing a briefcase or a pizza. Tourists approach the twin voids, mesmerized by the whisper of four-sided waterfalls. The sun shatters against the tree canopy, reaching the ground in green-gold shards. On a heat-stunned late-summer afternoon, the World Trade Center Memorial feels livelier than much of Manhattan.