Banksy blasts World Trade Center as a 'disaster'

Oct. 19, 2013: Work by British graffiti artist Banksy is displayed in the Brooklyn borough of New York. The building owner has hired security guards and installed a metal gate to protect a work by Banksy. Cara Tabachnick, whose family owns the building, said the goal is to preserve the artwork "so it can be viewed and enjoyed." Most of the Banksy works that have gone up have been tagged over by others, and some have been completely erased. Mayor Michael Bloomberg said last week that graffiti ruins property and is "a sign of decay." (AP/Alyssa Goodman)

NEW YORK – The elusive British graffiti artist Banksy says in an essay on his website that the design of the World Trade Center is "a disaster."

Banksy says the 104-story skyscraper "so clearly proclaims the terrorists won." He says the building "lacks any self-confidence."

Banksy likens it to a "tall kid at a party, awkwardly shifting his shoulders trying not to stand out from the crowd."

He says the essay was intended as a New York Times op-ed piece but the paper declined to publish it.

Times spokeswoman Eileen Murphy says, "We couldn't agree on either the piece or the art so it was rejected."

The artist on Sunday also tagged a building in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, with the words "This site contains blocked messages."