Banksy has fallen out of favour with the New York public after strongly criticising One World Trade Center, the monumental skyscraper being built on the site of the original Twin Towers. The tower is still under construction, and is slated for completion next year.

The anonymous street artist, who is nearing the end of a one-month long “residency” in New York, posted the controversial article on his website after it was rejected by The New York Times.

In a piece many have deemed insensitive, Banksy describes the “shyscraper” as “a non-event. It’s vanilla. It looks like something they would build in Canada.” He also takes issue with what he views as “a betrayal of everyone who lost their lives on September 11th, because it so clearly proclaims the terrorists won.”

Retired FDNY Deputy Chief Jim Riches, whose firefighter son passed away in the 9/11 terrorist attack, told New York Daily News: “[Banksy’s] insulting to everybody in New York, especially people that died that day.” This is not the first time that Banksy has attracted accusations of being insensitive about 9/11 over the past month. A graffito completed on October 15 in the Tribeca area featured a silhouette of the Twin Towers, with an orange daisy placed at the site of one of the plane crashes. Some felt the flower’s resemblance to an explosion triggered painful memories for those directly affected by the attack.

Banksy concludes the comment piece by saying, “One World Trade declares the glory days of New York are gone. You really need to put up a better building in front of it right away […] because you currently have under construction a one thousand foot tall sign that reads – New York – we lost our nerve.”

One World Trade Center stands at the historically significant 1,776 feet – a reference to 1776, the year of American independence from British colonial rule. It is now the tallest building in the United States.