Chapter Six
The initial procedures for starting construction on the newest tallest building in the world are much the same as they would be for the erection of a simple garden shed, or for the extension of a modest square footage on the rear of one’s kitchen: a form is filled in, a permission is sought, and a small announcement is published in the local press, and maintained in the offices of the planning department of the immediate governing authority, for public scrutiny and comment by anyone who should chance upon the news.
For Garnet there was a minor additional complication, in as much as the plot of land that he sought for his project was several fathoms underwater, submerged beneath the Hudson River. It had been a similar situation with the construction of the Twin Towers, but then it had been the actual excavation of the plot to build the two massive structures which had resulted in the creation of more than twenty acres of new land in lower Manhattan. The World Trade Center had influenced Garnet’s choice of location for another reason, too: the two towers had been much maligned, both by the architectural press and by the public on the street, for the monumental dullness of their design. The aluminium coated boxes had not been taken to New Yorkers’ hearts in the same way that the grand old lady of the city - the Empire State Building - had been. Nevertheless, purely as a result of their colossal size, and also their advantageous position - close to the waterfront, well away from the increasingly overcrowded skies above central Manhattan - the Twin Towers were becoming an icon of the city as a whole, instantly recognisable, and symbolising the spirit of aspirational eighties New York in the same way that the Statue of Liberty had done for new arrivals and dreamers almost a century beforehand. If two boring, regular boxes could invoke such powerful feelings, what a statement could be made by a truly innovative architectural design, located in a similar position, but built yet higher still, forever to cast its rivals in the shadows.
It is perhaps the very definition of an aspirational society to be forever seeking, ever pushing forward the boundaries, resolutely moving ahead, progressing. The reverse side of the same coin is that of a society which is never content, never happy with what they have currently got, always dissatisfied, condemned to be an eternal failure because there is always something else to achieve, the ultimate goal forever just unobtainable and out of reach. So it is in the race to build the world’s tallest building: at the precise moment you are drawing up the plans which appear to guarantee your own construction’s place in the record books, when your own building looks set to stand on top of the pedestal, news will come in of another structure, perhaps on the other side of the world, which is set to attain those precious few extra inches which consign yesterday’s hero to tomorrow’s also ran. Perhaps the most outrageous example of such brinksmanship was in the case of the Chrysler Building, whose architect was William van Alen. Originally announced at an intended height of 925 feet, the Chrysler would have been the then tallest building in the world, but, before construction was completed, it looked as though it was destined never to hold such an accolade, when the Bank of Manhattan outlined plans for its own new, downtown building, standing a mere two feet higher than the Chrysler’s proposed height. Construction of the two colossal buildings progressed side-by-side, brick-for-brick, with the Bank of Manhattan completing first and grabbing its place in the record books. Van Alen, though, had a surprise up his sleeve - or rather down his shaft - when a matter of just weeks after the Bank of Manhattan building was finished, from the fire shaft of his own building, he hoisted up, in one completed, twenty-seven ton piece, the exquisite Art Deco spire, which, forever since, has come to symbolise a halcyon, almost innocent age of skyscraper construction and which, when added to the top of his now completed structure, meant the Chrysler Building’s completed height of 1046 feet, not only towered far, and beautifully, above its upstart neighbour, but also outstripped the height of the Eiffel Tower, which had stood, unchallenged, as the tallest structure in the world since 1889. It was in this climate of competition that Garnet paid his first visit to the lawyer Leyton Drisdale.
The next two years were a time of great turmoil for Garnet Wendelson. How many times, during this period, did he imagine the scenario of sailing into New York Harbour aboard the luxurious surroundings of the QE2, catching a first homecoming glimpse of his native city from his position on the uppermost deck, his wheelchair parked alongside the guard rail, seeing his visionary structure rising above the endless horizon, the first indication that the motherland was close at hand, and then watching as the great ship, guided by the new beacon’s pull, gradually approached closer, until the familiar skyline dissembled into all its separate elements, of which the Wendelson Building would remain the most distinctive and recognisable piece of all. There would be a crowd of onlookers at the quayside to cheer his safe arrival home, eager to witness his first reaction to seeing the finished product of all his years of planning, and there would be a tear in his eye as he gazed upwards, ever upwards, the summit of his great undertaking momentarily lost in the blur of the sunlight beyond, and realised that he, alone, had attempted to surmount the heavens, and had succeeded.
Alas, it was another dream never to be realised, largely due to the intervention of a humble local fisherman, a small environmental organisation called The Friends of THRUSH (The Hudson River Unique Subaquatic Habitat) and a small edible crustacean, Palaemonetes vulgaris majus, the Greater Orange Grass Shrimp.
Garnet had envisaged the Wendelson Building - he was still not absolutely decided on the name, but this was how the new structure was recorded in the books of the Downtown planning office - being built in less than a year. The Empire State Building still held the record for the swiftness of its build compared to the number of floors of its elevation, the simplicity of its steel and limestone design having made it a relatively straightforward engineering endeavour. Garnet had decided to adopt a similar building technique, proposed to employ a larger workforce, and reasoned that fifty years on, technological advancements in manufacturing and equipment should ensure a more rapid skywards advance. He was never to discover if his reasoning was sound or not. His building application was blocked before the first drainage equipment and excavators had been moved onto the site.
The Orange Grass Shrimp, sometimes called ‘hardbacks’ or ‘popcorn shrimp’, are among the most common estuarine inhabitants along the eastern seaboard of the United States. Transparent, except for the distinctive orange pigmentation in their eyestalks, they do not usually make for great eating, rarely growing longer than two inches in length and, with their heads making up the greater part of this length, having little edible flesh for discerning diners. Nevertheless, for New York fisherman Thomas Derry, they provided a useful supplement to a typically meagre income. It was Derry’s name that appeared on the official letter that Garnet received from the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, informing the would-be builder, that a complaint had been lodged against his proposal to drain a stretch of the Hudson River and that, until a thorough investigation into the matter had been completed, no advancement of his project could be countenanced. At this stage, Garnet was annoyed but not perturbed: he had little doubt that an exchange of money at some level, be it with the highest officer at the Port Authority or with the obstructive fisherman himself, would elicit the requisite about-turn that was clearly required. As far as Derry was concerned, indeed, Garnet’s assessment of the situation was not far from the truth. It had taken a great deal of courage for the mild-mannered piscator to even enter the door of the austere, council building, let alone fill in the plethora of forms that gave voice to his alleged grievance: a fat cheque would have proved perfectly adequate compensation for this necessary show of bravery. The Friends of THRUSH, though, could not be bought so easily. The plight of Derry had come to their attention by way of a tiny news item, buried away in the local section, in the New York Times. The mention of shrimp, in a section of the river that traditionally would not have been considered a f
avoured habitat of that innocuous invertebrate, had got them intrigued. Their interest was heightened further still, when initial investigations suggested that the Battery Park City shrimp appeared to be a totally new species, unquestionably of the grass shrimp genus, but the captured specimens proving to be far larger than the accepted norm, the unique subaquatic inhabitants bizarrely thriving in the busy, polluted coastal waters, beneath the eternal shadows cast by the Twin Towers. The new crustacean was unusual enough to warrant a half-page article in Nature; the ensuing battle to save the shrimp’s environment from alleged evil developers, made the front page of all the major nationals. Even then Garnet might still have had the final word, had not the Port Authority thrown in their legal weight behind the environmentalists.
Garnet always maintained that it was a case of envy over progress: the Port Authority were the largest tenants of the World Trade Center and had a vested interest in maintaining their own building as the superlative structure on the waterfront. Whether their reasons for supporting the shrimp lobby were commercial self-interest or purely philanthropic, the Port Authority’s intervention ensured that the Wendelson Building would not be constructed on its proposed site without a lengthy round of lawyers’ correspondence, and in fact, ultimately resulted in a protracted court case, which Garnet, at great financial cost, was to lose. At a time when the Harvard Business School were still preaching profits before ethics, and a generation of bright young things were leaving college destined to earn mega-bucks on a stock exchange which seemed impervious to a fall, when Wall Street was synonymous with power, and greed was the primary economic driving force, Garnet, to his horror and disgust, had become one of the first financial victims to the rising star of environmentalism. Across town, if he been there to witness Dirk Rawson’s expression as he read that morning’s newspapers and the full report of the Wendelson verdict, Garnet would have noted a small smile of self-congratulation playing around the bank manager’s face, as he read, with satisfaction how his prophecy had come true.
For once, money was not enough. The mighty dollar that had protected Garnet throughout his life, that had cushioned him from the worst inconveniences of his youthful disablement, that had guaranteed his acceptance in the world and had paid for the subservience of most of the individuals he was ever destined to meet in it, for once, had let him down. The realisation was like a hammer blow to Garnet. He felt like a man walking alone on a high trapeze, the safety net beneath him having been removed for the first time. In the familiar streets, where before he had freewheeled secure, now he felt as though there were perils closing in on him from all quarters. The tall buildings of his home city which had once been his inspiration, now loomed above him, blocking out the sky, closing in on him oppressively, mocking his lowly position on the pavements, belittling his belief that he could ever have hoped to join them in the air.
A short time later, Garnet was to find himself sitting on the top deck of the QE2, but far from experiencing the kind of heroic homecoming of which he had dreamed, instead he was departing New York: the twin towers of the World Trade Center the last glimpse of his home city before they disappeared beneath the horizon.
Interlude
The Church of the Higher We, by its very nature, if not exactly encouraged, nevertheless harboured, many slightly bizarre offshoots, of which the Terminal Baggers was one of the more discreditable factions. Critics dismissed its members as being nothing short of petty criminals; supporters considered themselves as something akin to a proactive cargo cult.
A none too succinct introduction to the philosophy and lifestyle of the sect was offered by Australian Wayne Pederson at his trial in the United Kingdom in 2004, a section of the transcript of which is provided below. Pederson, refusing the services of a court lawyer, insisted on defending himself, and was ultimately found guilty of theft, and sentenced to three years’ imprisonment, after previous suspended sentences were taken into account.
I’d been at Heathrow for almost a year, but the community there had grown too large and the Opponents* had been stepped up and were making life intolerable: there were too many mouths to feed and not enough Offerings* to go around. We had lost a couple of good leaders early on in the year too and we had become reliant on new members, who were not yet known to the Opponents, to collect the daily Offerings from the Spinning Altar*. It was a tough time. Jollings - our new leader - had said that if we could all just make it through to Christmas, things would improve: there would be more flights; there would be more Offerings. I didn’t believe him: he had said the same at the start of the summer. Then, there had been more flights, but there had been no more Offerings. Still our community went without. Jollings would bring us Hawaiian floral shirts and sun tan lotion, when we had people starving, desperate for food. I remember arguing with him at the time that he was choosing the wrong kind of Offerings: bigger did not always mean better. I advocated that we should concentrate on carry-on Offerings*, but Jollings would not hear of it. I almost lost my faith more than once during that long summer. It was about that time that I first heard about a smaller community that had recently established itself at Stansted. At first, I thought that it was just a myth: there were always stories of lost groups; of Terminal paradises and magnificent Offerings; even tales of communities living in peace, free from persecution from the Opponents. I did not believe any of them. Until, I met Shakra that is. She had said that she was from Stansted; that there was a small group of Terminal Baggers based there, and that they had a wealth of Offerings, so much so that they were actually now in a position to start to trade with other airport communities. They were not living in the subsistence fashion that we were at Heathrow, far from it. It sounded almost to good too be true. She told me about the network of airports and how they were all linked. There was Heathrow and Stansted, of course, but also Gatwick in the south and Luton in the north, both now trading with each other. She also talked of City Airport, although she confessed that she had never been there, her knowledge of the place only being hazy; the Terminal Baggers based there reputedly being the most insular and fundamental of any of the central communities. There was even talk of trading with France; apparently she was due to meet with a representative of the Baggers based at Orly the next weekend. She suggested that I join her group at Stansted. She said that they were always keen to accept new members. It was the kind of optimistic talk that I had not heard at Heathrow for months. Even so, it is a big decision to move from one place of worship to somewhere new. I had known other Baggers - mainly ones arrived from airports overseas - who had attempted to join us at Heathrow; they would be looking for a new start, perhaps some were trying to rekindle a dwindling faith, it never worked out, they all reverted* in the end. Once the roots of belief are dug up it is rare that they can ever be successfully replanted somewhere else. I said that I would have to think about it, and she said that she would be back in one month to see what decision I had made. In the meantime Jollings - I never discovered who told him - had learnt that I had been talking about possibly defecting to Stansted. He was furious. He accused me of being a heretic. He accused me of handling Unclean Offerings* and even of trying to contact a member of the Unseen*. It was all untrue, of course, but once mud has been flung it is inevitable that a little of it sticks. I was ostracised by the rest of the community, and there was nothing for it other than for me to leave. A Bagger can’t survive for long on his own. I have known others try, but they are all caught by the Opponents in the end. Their faces get known. I knew my days were numbered. I only wonder what life would have had in store for me if I had been bold enough to seize my chance; if I had followed Shakra when she had called; if I would have discovered my paradise at Stansted*.
The new edition of the Bickerstaff Dictionary of Alternative Religions, Sects and Cults dismisses the Terminal Baggers with the following brief paragraph.
Established c. 1999. Membership figures unknown, but estimated at fewer than 2,000. Termin
al Baggers live outside the normal conventions of civilisation, believing neither in paid labour nor any form of subsistence farming, instead deriving their sole source of food and sustenance from whatever they are able to steal or scavenge from the baggage carousels at international airports. It is unclear exactly what they worship, although the whole airport complex is considered a place of reverence, the zone between arrivals and passport control being particularly holy, and baggage handlers are treated like gods.