[an image either Barry or I captured only days after September 11]

Oops.

The only remaining recognizable relic of the sacred World Trade Center buildings is missing, but I guess we're still more or less on target to spend nearly a billion dollars on two holes - incidently, totally not a part of anyone's memory of the structures.

Newsday carries an AP story this morning under the headline, "Lasting legacy lost?"

Nine stories of the World Trade Center's north tower facade stood in thousands of tons of rubble while workers recovered bodies and cleared the site of the towers' ruins.

When workers brought the latticework facade down in December 2001, officials said some of it would be saved. Sept. 11 family members say they want to one day return the steel columns to Ground Zero to become part of a memorial.

But today, officials say they aren't sure how much of that facade they have and what can be put back together.

See this link for more images from the weeks after September 11.

*
the name was Barry's way of recognizing my reference when I told him that the facade segment was missing (we've both worked in the WTC and we're New Yorkers; we can be as irreverent as we want about our countrymen's excuse for their latest bloodlust)