NYT Rejects Banksy Rant on World Trade Center

Banksy's not a fan of One World Trade Center, which he calls "vanilla" and a "non-event" in a piece submitted to—and rejected by—the New York Times. "Remarkably for such a tall structure, One World Trade Center lacks any self-confidence," he notes. "It would be easy to view One World Trade Center as a betrayal of everyone who lost their lives on September 11th, because it so clearly proclaims the terrorists won. Those 10 men have condemned us to live in a world more mediocre than the one they attacked."

The street artist posted the article, formatted to appear as it might have in the Times, on his website, the Metro reports. "Nobody comes to New York to bathe in your well-mannered common sense," he adds in the piece. "We’re here for the spirit and audacity. Of which One World Trade has none." Says a Times rep: Banksy "did submit an op-ed and art. We couldn’t agree on either the piece or the art, so we rejected it," she notes. "What he has posted on his site is not exactly the same as what he submitted." (More Banksy stories.)