Letters to the Editor
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A Dignified Gravestone
Ii read a letter from a NY Daily News reader that suggested a simple and sober memorial to the victims of 9/11: a reflecting pool and a low wall engraved with the names of the victims.
As a New Yorker, I think it would be a great idea. Keep the memorial simple and dignified. Its emotional impact will be stronger the simpler it is. Just like the Vietnam memorial is in Washington.
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I don't mind the Pools
Actually, I kind of like the idea of the reflecting pools. And the water entering them from all four sides is a nice touch. The latter reminding me of how the towers presented the same admittedly bland face to the world from all angles.
Too bad they couldn't just leave it at that. Surely the pools thems selves are only a small fraction of that price tag.
Mr. Engelhardt's listing of other existing and non-existing memorials just makes it clear though, that it is the buildings we are memorializing, not those inside them. While surely the rounded off figure of 3000 lives will linger within anyone who visits, tellingly its really the loss of the real-estate that sticks with most of us. We all knew New York and we all knew those bildings. There were there for all to see. Now they are not. And its someone's fault. That seems to be what we have always been really worked up about.
If the planes had just headed into the middle of down town and plowed into a couple of large but non descript appartment buildings and killed just as many people, we would probably build a nice park with some kind of accesible memorial. But would we be talking of erecting the planet's tallest building? I doubt it.
And speaking of the "Freedom Tower", it looks to be nothing more than:
1. One big middle finger aimed at everyone in the world who we think didn't feel properly bummed that day.
2. The architectual equivalent of saying "I dare you to do that again".
"&^%$-em! Tower" is more appropriate
And the museum... Do we really have to? That has to be source for the bulk of the expenses. I hate to be flip but can't there just be an official website or something? Maybe its because I can't think of 9/11 without thinking of how its constant invocation by the has led to the near destruction of our republic. And you can bet that won't be in the museum.
But as someone more clevor than I once said: In America, it isn't over 'till its over done.
But I like the pools. Quite, open, contemplative, respectuful, Isn't that what a memorial is all about?
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Memorial for what?
While all the whatnot said about George Bush is correct, and New Orleans needs to be pumped out and rebuilt a bit more desperately than New York needs a memorial, the patch of real estate where the Twin Towers stood needs to be dealt with. A pair of reflecting pools is a nice idea, and a border of oak trees is likewise nice. Similarly, while the design is not very pleasing (I've heard it likened to gyros meat on a spit), it's not that outlandish to build one tower where you formerly had two. All that shouldn't cost a billion, but then again, I don't do budgeting in New York.
The last item, the underground museum with all the various artifacts of that fateful day.... Um, well, I'll go ahead and mention the obvious--eventually no one will want to look at all the artifacts, so most of them will be put in storage and rotated through an exhibit in one room while the rest of the complex becomes some other sort of museum. Perhaps a second branch of the Smithsonian, which has more exhibits than it can put on display, and would be a logical place to store the 9/11 artifacts once they become as interesting and relevant as artifacts from various past wars.
As for the waterfalls, I expect those will look really nice until the pumps break and the city takes forever to fix them, as is usual with huge public fountains.
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A poem
Read the poem Ozaymandeous (sp) ... it tells what America has become.
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Not cheap, but not really as expensive as you say
Not to say that the memorial will be cheap, but the billion dollars turns out to be the cost for the memorial plus a lot of other things. The piece mentions the museum (not part of the original plan, and accounting for about $210 million of the current estimate), which is one component. There's also $300 million (up from an original estimate of $175 million) for various Port Authority desires, like a giant air conditioning plant and rerouting train tracks, that aren't directly related to the memorial, and $80 million for the "cultural center" that's supposed to be part of the WTC site redevelopment. In other words, at least 60 percent of the current cost estimate is for things that aren't part of the memorial.
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Desperate Romansticism
That's what the Memorial is. It's an over the top reaction to overwhelm the contemporary populace of the importance of our collective reaction. It states to those who may not fully grasp the gull gravity of the events that what matters most is our recollection and preservation of these hideous events so that whatever world exists beyond these times is better off because of the imensity of our reactions-revenge at whatever cost.... It puts into relative scale the severity of our current Administrations' recompense as arbiters of succor and understanding so much as to go to war in response. Eventually, it will be nothing more than a Frank Lloyd Wright-esque mothball strewn statement of gross overstatement and self-referencing romance. The whole thing reeks of masochistic irony. But it will be pretty! And that's neat.
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9/11 Memorial Blues
The two most moving memorials I have seen are in London. One is the Cenotaph, the simple stone slab which just reads "1914-1918." Every Briton knows what that means--700,000 dead. The other is in the Park cadycorner to The Palace of Westminster. Among the statues of Britain's greatest Parliamentary leaders is a seated Abraham Lincoln, our greatest leader. I was never prouder to be an American than I was that cold late afternoon, seeing how our hero could be just as relevant to the British as Palmerston or Wilberforce. The Lincoln statue connects people and uplifts them. I fear the 9/11 memeorial will do neither.