There's no other way to say this: Six years is long enough.

Long enough for Ground Zero to stop being a hole in the ground.

Remember when New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin came to town just after Katrina, and he described the World Trade Center site that way?

He took an awful lot of heat for his unfortunate nomenclature. But the words stung precisely because they were true.

Time ticked on. And on. And on. And progress at the hole - yes, it was a hole - was frustratingly, maddening slow.

So many constituencies had to be satisfied - the families, the neighborhood, the mayor, the governor, the Port Authority, the fire department, the police  that prolonged paralysis was the inevitable result.

Well, apparently, six years really was long enough.

Finally, on Tuesday, we're commemorating a 9/11 anniversary with the sound of actual rebuilding in the air.

I walked by the hole half-a-dozen times this past week. And every time, I saw busy workers down there. It was downright uplifting.

The biggest controversy this year - there's always one - has involved the level of danger that would be posed to the commemorators by the ongoing construction work.

A debate over rebuilding instead of a debate over a hole in the ground.

Take that, Ray Nagin. It's a debate we can actually be proud of.