There are certain things one believes but doesn’t want to admit at the time. John Kerry was a bad presidential candidate–I knew it, but I supported him to the hilt. If anyone had asked me before last November, I would have extolled his virtues. Now, though, I can let my true feelings be known.
Other things aren’t so simple. I tried as hard as I could, for example, to like Daniel Libeskind’s design for the “Freedom Tower” (though I always loathed that name). Not only do I love New York, but I look at Manhattan quite often from my weekly vantage point in Brooklyn.
My real feelings, though, were that the design looked like a finger with an evil nail–giving the bird to the rest of the world. And that made me queasy.
But I would never have admitted that. Not until today.
When I woke up this morning I realized that, damn it, I no longer want a building on that site at all. The proponents of a park and “footprint” memorial are right.
Those of us who were in New York on 9/11 felt an overwhelming sadness–an incredible sense of loss. This new, gleaming building–even with a memorial involved–would never be able to reflect that. And reflect that it should.
If that’s not convincing, look at it this way: would you want to work in a building that was intended (to some degree) as a giant “up yours” to the enemies of the United States? Isn’t it said that discretion is the better part of valor? In this case, certainly so. There’s no point in putting yourself in the center of a bulls-eye.
Oh, sure. There are many who will grunt and puff their chests and say “But we back down to nobody.”
But it’s not a question of backing down. It’s simply a question of respect and of sensibility.
Want a “Freedom Tower”? OK, but wait a while. Wait until the US has regained a position in the world where it is respected as a worthy defender of freedom.
In the meantime, give us a place for our grief, not a solace to our pride.
[Crossposted on dKos]
Hey I wrote my comment on DKos, didn’t know you had posted the same diary here…Jesus Christ do I have to write my response again?
I’ll write my sarcastic punch line: We should build a gigantic Shiva lingum with titanium balls…and a penis that can shoot missiles…
LOL!
I’m not a New Yorker but I agree with Aaron’s perception of the design.
I’ve never understood the new plan. It should be either an identical rebuild or a memorial.
It seems that economic considerations are pushing for some kind of reconstruction (all that valuable real estate), but when you’ve blown 300+ billion in a war that sounds like a silly argument.
Either it is a momentous event, and you treat the site with the appropriate respect (which includes saying “forget about the money”) or it’s not a momentous event and you don’t push a world-upsetting policy using it as an axcuse.
that a park memorial and a small peace center (to educate people on world conflict, respect for other religions and cultures and some of the people who have fought for peace and tolerance MLK, Ali, Gandhi, etc…) was the only respectful use of that land.
To put up a higher brighter building is macho bravado and not acceptable.
I’m going to take a chance, and post something contrary.
When someone close to you dies, you put them to rest in the cemetery. A respectful place, one quiet and conducive to self reflection. Its a rite to honor ones memory, and sooth the soul of the survivors.
I would not want the grave site of my loved one in my front yard, to pass it every day as I came down the driveway to relax at home. I would not want it in the parking lot of my work. I’m from a small town. Our graveyards are generally church plots out a few miles in the country. Often the church (if there was one on site) is long since gone, and only the grave sites themselves remain. It feels peaceful, and respectful, visiting with them out in the country, where one can sit listening to the rustling of the grain in the field nearby, and the chirping of the insects, and the twittering of the birds in the row of pines on the cemetery border.
As a child, I lived in Minneapolis, a city of decent size. My school bus took me past the cemetery’s big black wrought iron fence. I seldom looked beyond, to the mausoleums. The cemetery I was most familiar with was set near the lakes. City of Lakes (original home of the Lakers, after all). I remember going for a picnic to the cemetery one memorial day, and then walking to the lakes. Its a peaceful setting, perhaps a bit less solemn than the country graveyard, but reminiscent of the time when graveyards were more social places. Yes, families used to take their outings there. I’ve heard the stories, and read similar accounts, tho it still seems a bit foreign to me, like top hats and bonnets.
I also remember visiting Fort Snelling National Cemetery, with its rows upon rows of grave markers of our fallen kin from WWI and WWII and other wars earlier and later than those. It was a proud, sad sight. It was a place of solemn majesty tinged with loss.
I’ve read with great interest stories about the Vietnam Memorial. Its black granite etched with the near-countless names of the fallen. It too, seems a place of quiet dignity, set among the monuments of D.C.
Then there is the Auschwitz memorial and museum. Its a reminder of the horrors of genocide, and a reminder to never let it happen again. Its not a place of joy, but of somber remembrance.
I like cemeteries. I don’t visit them frequently, but when I do, its always a moving, meaningful occasion. I reflect on what my departed family members have missed. The birth of their grandchildren, or great-grandchildren. The family reunions. Sharing the struggles and joys of the lives of those they left behind. The lives cut short by war, depriving uncles and great-uncles of the chance to have families of their own, or leaving their children without a father.
I’m not sure what to make of the Twin Towers site. Its setting is so different than the graveyards I’ve been too. Its more of a scene of a crime or an accident. That’s what the reflecting pool idea reminds me of — two large chalk lines forever marking the bodies of the two towers that housed those thousands of souls.
Perhaps that’s what’s niggling at the back of my mind as I write this. The thought of driving down the highway past those informally erected crosses and flowers marking where someone died in a car accident. The highway department struggles between treating them (and the families that erected them) with respect, and removing them as a hazard and perhaps as a bit of an eyesore. Its a bit disturbing to drive past them, day after day, as you travel the same stretch of road going about your life. They indicate grief, and I so want to respect that. But my life goes on, and the purpose of my life is not to feel someone elses grief, nor an abstract grief, every day of my life, until my time passes, and become the next object of grief.
I can’t help but wonder, what is the purpose of a Twin Towers Memorial? Is it a place for families to pay homage to the ones they lost, in addition to the cemeteries where their loved ones are interred if only symbolically. Or is a marker, like those on the side of a road saying “a tragedy happened here”. Is it a place for families to gather and frolic, like the old stories? Or a somber memorial like the Vietnam Memorial, to remind us of the first tragic cost of 9/11. Or is it like Auschwitz, a symbol echoing tragedy never to go away, to remind us we can never go back?
I’m concerned. We all want to pay our respects, and show dignity to the lives lost. But does New York really want to etch that moment permanently into the fabric of the city?
I don’t mean to be insensitive. I’m out here in the Midwest. When I think of 9/11, I recall the shock and horror it put me, and everyone I knew, into for weeks. With the passing of time, I’ve accepted a new perspective.
In those weeks, a permanent memorial, or a retributory new structure, or both would have made perfect sense to me. Now I’m not so sure.
Nicely put. I think a park with a memorial wouldn’t seem too much like a cemetery–rather more like the Vietnam wall in DC. A place for quiet and reflection.