After nine years, Ground Zero is coming to life. If, in the intervening years, we have repressed our memories and ignored actual progress on the benighted 16-acres in Lower Manhattan, we can refamiliarize ourselves with its transformation, for the seemingly impossible is happening.

Of course, they said it couldn’t be done. Conventional wisdom, tongue-waggers, critics of all stripes, and political naysayers have been prognosticating that we would never see the completion of the structures intended for the former World Trade Center site during this decade. So much worked against completion, not least the current economy, with its glut of office space in Manhattan. Yet all, including pundits at architectural record, failed to take New York grit into full account.