NYC photo
 

This was taken just after sunset

Okay. Obvious question.

What are the two white poles?

The "poles" are shafts of light from two huge lights at Ground Zero. It's real, and it's a memorial.

those lights
 

I saw a view from the air, and the the lights are off the WTC site and located nearby. Ground Zero is still too active a site for art displays, so they did it across the street. The scale is also different than the original WTC towers, the lights aren't as wide as the real towers.

It would be cool if the same idea were used in a permanent memorial, but with lights in the actual outlines of where the towers really stood.

Are there larger, high quality picts somewhere?

Re: those lights
 

The only problem with that is the cost of the electricity. I read somewhere that this memorial will be up for just a few months, but that it will cost $10,000 in electricity, which the electric company is donating to the city.

How goes the progress of photovoltaic cells (aka solar batteries)? If they were sufficiently developed, you could let them charge during the day, then let the lights run off them during the night.

~mike

They aren't even CLOSE - those lighrs put out a LOT more light per sq foot than sunlight, plus you would have to make up for any losses in the system. You could do it now with enough acreage, but....

The thing is, thoses beams are LIGHT POLLUTION - if they were columns of smoke, people would scream. They turn them off at 10pm (or is it 11?), plus they watch for birds - they attract birds, and end up causing them to be killed. If a bird flock approaches, they turn them off - Plus, some of use want to be able to see the stars

Yeah, and if they were fountains of rotten sewage, people would scream too. But they're not. They're light. If you wanna see stars, move away from downtown NYC!

I like 'em.

For those interested, I found some larger pics at http://x.arpa.com/wtc_light_memorial/, although the photographer couldn't seem to get a good pic w/o barges in the way...

Hm, good point about light pollution.

Although I've never been to NYC, I've always surmised that you can never see the stars in NYC anyway =]

I have, I'm in Eastern Queens

And if you don't want to breath the smoke from those smokestacks, move away - and don't worry about killing the birds

Re: NYC photo
 

*gets a bit misty eyed* That's just gorgeous. I just wish that could be permanent.

I hope that they can put up something permanent that is as symbolic as the lights (and no, not another tower building, which IMO, is just another target).