The stock markets would move to St Louis or Las Vegas, soon to be followed by the banks, and the rest of the financial sector.

Once that happens, NYC would basically be little more than Detroit without a bridge to Canada.

Nice try Chris. If memory serves, back in 1965 secession was a plank in William F. Buckley's tongue-in-cheek campaign for mayor of NYC (he happily lost to John Lindsay). Got any original ideas or do you rely exclusively on the Liberal Column Generator?

Ed:

I don't think that was a plank, but my memory is suspect:

http://www.brothersjudd.com/index.cfm/fuseaction/reviews.detail/book_id/20/

Just like the last civil war, people upset that they lost an election then decide they should secede. The entire point of democracy is that election results matter. I have nothing but contempt for these guys.

Actually, it was that rational and sober campaign team of Norman Mailer and Jimmy Breslin who campaigned in 1969 under the secession (from New York State) banner -- Mailer ran for mayor and Breslin as city council president promising to make New York City the 51st state.

In the end, New Yorkers rejected their radical ideas and re-elected John V. Lindsey, who successfully spent the final two months of the campaign convincing enough local residents he was not responsible for the failure to quickly clean up the big snowstorm in March of that year, but did play a critical role in the New York Mets' World Series victory over Baltimore in October (Democrat Mario Proccachino was the conservative candidate in the race that year, as hard as that may be to believe).

I thought it was funny that he lauds in one paragraph the ameloriation of rapant capitalism while bemoaning the tax burden in the next. It's NYC voters who keep the tax rate up, not the upstaters.

And the NYC reaction to 9/11 would have been ...

By the way, did anyone ever claim that "the Twin Towers stood over the nation as the symbol of empire", or have much nice to say about them at all, prior to 9/11?

Anyone who advocates this is guilty of treason. Maybe not a prosecutable treason, but a moral one nontheless.

And it thus exposes their lie that "dissent is patriotic", etc. Actually, dissent CAN be patriotic. But the fact that these "dissenters", having lost in the arena of ideas, merely shrug their shoulders and set about dismantling the country ("If *I* can't have it, no one can!") shows that "patriotism" is to them an untterly meaningless word, to be used when convenient, discarded like tissue, and marks the core of childishness that makes up their being.

David:

All of us from the Tri-State area who grew up watching their rise ruin the skyline used to say terrible things about the.

Ahhh, New York. Mmm mmm. Living life squished among millions of others crowded onto a small little island. Paying exorbitant prices for even the most basic material goods. Relying on dirty trains and cabs to get around, and virtually smelling the stink of factories just by glancing across the river. Spending your entire life as a renter rather than a homeowner. Losing your self-identity and sense of worth because you're but a little speck among the hordes, with probably half a thousand people who sorta look like you just in the few blocks around your tiny cramped apartment. And, of course, listening to that damned accent day after day.

The arrogance of most New Yorkers never fails to astound. With a couple of little twists in the routes of a couple of ships a few centuries ago, it would have been Charleston that wound up serving as America's main point of entry. And it would have been Charleston that turned into the massively overcrowded metropolis brimming with unmerited arrogance. At least the Carolinas actually have winters that are designed for human habitation.

John,

I stand gratefully corrected. I was not sure about it and seemed to recall a team. Mailer/Breslin it was.

Ketchum still needs a bit of originality.

Regards,

Ed

NYC has the greatest natural harbor in the world.(Singapore is 2d) Since marine trade was the economic engine of the 17th thru the 19th centuries, NYC's ascendancy was inevitable. Also, the building of the Erie Canal which enabled goods to leave the West and float from the Great Lakes to NYC aided its ascendancy.

Charleston, pleasant weather if you like high heat and humidity, lacked NYC's natural advantages.

You might make an argument for New Orleans, which also has the virtue of great food and music.

What accent?

Well, considering that Charleston was the second-busiest port in the 18th century colonies (maybe even No. 1 at some point?), I don't think it's too difficult -- and is certainly kinda fun -- to conjure an alternative history.

Remember that the Mayflower, for instance, was supposed to land down south.

You are right about the Erie Canal. Meanwhile, in a battle of the seasons, I'd take Charleston's hot summers over New York's frigid winters in a heartbeat.

SPilch,

Before you give your contempt free reign, I suggest reading "The Island at the Center of the World: The Epic Story of Dutch Manhattan & the Forgotten Colony that Shaped America" by Russell Shorto. The Dutch built their outpost on trade, most any sort of trade. New Amsterdam, later New York, was not a city on a hill but a city on a street -- Wall Street. I can't speak for Charleston, but Manhattan's anything goes spirit (along with the Erie Canal), insured that Boston would eventually become the World-Class TOWN that it is today.

Regards,

Ed

P.S. This Dutch judge is biased. I lived there for 17 years, most of them a short walk from the statue of Peter Stuyvesant.

> By the way, did anyone ever claim that "the Twin Towers stood over the nation as the symbol of empire", or have much nice to say about them at all, prior to 9/11?

Having seen the Twin Towers in the King Kong remake at a very early age, and having visited the observation deck at age 17 (1987), I've always thought they were pretty cool. But I'll certainly concede that the exterior design didn't have a lot of personality above the lowest floors where the pointy arches came together. Then again, if you can identify the dullest man on earth, doesn't that alone make him very interesting?

Aesthetics aside, I'm pretty well convinced that the towers really were the symbol of modern-day NYC (and hence the "empire"). It's astonishing how many pre-9/11 movies, TV shows, video games, etc., felt obliged to incorporate them in some montage or another.

Oh, but the main reason I'm posting a response here is to point out that I think this guy wants to be New York's answer to Mark Morford. Keep an eye on him -- I see big, passionate, messy, sweaty, undulating things in his future.

A writer for whom Mark Morford is his idol. That's like a comedian modeling himself after Pauly Shore or Bobcat Goldthwait.

Don't forget Carrot-Top!

My father worked two blocks from the twin towers site as the old Washington Market and Hudson Terminal were being torn down in the late 1960s to make way for the complex, so I was able to see a lot of the process, inluding the carving out of the "bathtub" that left the tubes for the PATH subway going to New Jersey standing on 30-foot high stilts while the new lower-level station was built. However, while the construction was cool to watch, the final site itself was cold to visit for its first 20 or so years -- isolated by high walls from the rest of the neighborhood on 2 1/2 of its four sides, the areas where Tower 1 and Tower 2 stood were virtually devoid of pedestrian life until Battery Park City and the World Financial Center complex were built on the landfill to the west, created by digging out the bathtub.

The builings probably had a more favorable image for those who grew up never knowing anything but having the Twin Towers in view while looking down Fifth Avenue, but after they came down, I could almost see what Norman Mailer was getting at when he spoke of his dislike of the structures (had he left it to disparaging the architecture alone instead of trying to make them represent all of American capitalism, I could have even overlooked the fact that like many post-9/11 leftists, he waited until he was in Europe to make his comments).

What secessionists never bother to consider is that if secession is acceptable, then it's also possible for the rest of the country to "seceed" from New York City or California or whatever other urban paradise-on-earth they live in. Keep talking nasty about "Jesusland" and they may get their wish, good and hard. Do those places have what it takes to be another Hong Kong or Singapore?

I like the comment of a friend of mine, a NYC native , who said that the only reason that NYC became the metropolis it is now is that the New Yorkers were willing to do the bookkeeping for the Southern plantation owners and in so doing the city became the huge port it was. Without the bookkeepers the South would have dominated the nation. I think he has a point. The New Yorkers would have done anything for anyone for money. They still operate the same way.

Every city has its hinterland. Every great city has a great hinterland. New York City started out with a great harbor and a river leading straight into the hinterland (the Hudson Valley). With the Erie Canal, NYC's hinterland became the whole of the Great Lakes. With rail and telegraph links, its hinterland became the whole Lower 48 States. Now its nearly the entire world.

Love it or hate it, NYC is the capital of the modern world, inheriting that title from London circa 1914. I think UBL chose to attack NYC because it is the world's financial and cultural capital. There are no challengers in sight... though with the political views currently prevalent in that city today, with the city's greatness now a source of guilt not pride, it seems NYC wants to abandon its primacy (and its main source of wealth).

My first roommate in colleage was a rabid Vermont seccessionist. Now there was a guy living in fantasyland.

I dunno; I worked there for eight years and I'd kinda like to see them go. Decentralization might have some benefits.

Why shouldn't Vermont just go? Why do we need them? Certainly not for the over-priced, over-subsidized, easily replaceable dairy products.