TO Bury Our Dead

New York Post ^ | 12.08.2003 | Nicole Gelinas

[NYC GOP Chick]

December 8, 2003 -- THE horror of 9/11 presented New York with this reality: Our task is not to build a soaring memorial Downtown to honor our abstract dead. Rather, we must create a cemetery, where the city will bury flesh and bone.

[NYC GOP Chick]

Generations of Wall Street workers have treasured their proximity to the centuries-old graveyards at Trinity Church and St. Paul's Chapel, both within a stone's throw of the WTC site.

Workers in the Financial District walk through the twin churchyards daily to gain something of the past - and to be reminded that a world exists beyond their own frenetic workaday lives.

The peaceful coexistence of Downtown's two cemeteries alongside ever-taller skyscrapers has taught us one thing: The living can honor the dead even as they live and build around them.

Some relatives of those killed on 9/11 believe that Downtown residents and workers want to rebuild quickly because they want to forget what happened on that Tuesday morning. This is a terrible myth. Downtown citizens want to properly remember their fallen colleagues and friends - and they don't want to work in or near a WTC that fails to honor their own generation of dead.

For the past couple of years, she's been writing great stuff about this.

[NYC GOP Chick]

Your thoughts?

[jocon307]

I find it very hard to make up my mind about this, but I do feel that re-building is key. I also think that preservation of the "footprints" is impossible.

In terms of burying the remains at that site, I'm surprised people want to do that, but, you know, it's New York, no matter how impossible the task seems, it'll get done. It just won't get done without a lot of arguing.

[NYC GOP Chick]

It just won't get done without a lot of arguing.

It never does -- and every possible person and group will demand to have its say in it. I remember not longer after the attacks, when someone posted here on FR a sort of spoof which listed each and every person who'd insist on being consulted before one brick was put down. The list included everyone from Dennis Rivera to Randi Weingarten to Jackie Mason and so on. I fear that's not at all far from the truth.

[NYC GOP Chick]

She's written some great stuff about what should rise up from that hole in the ground. Oddly, her other articles usually leave me cold, but on this subject, she just hits the right note with me.

[alisasny]

I have always felt that the time for a memorial is after we win the war on terrorism. How are all the "experts" and "complainers" going to feel if we have another attack when for over 2 years all they cared about was the footprints.

May sound harsh but that is how I feel.

As always I still believe the towers rebuilding should have started 2 years ago and been replicas of the originals with a different name.

[NYC GOP Chick]

I have always felt that the time for a memorial is after we win the war on terrorism. How are all the "experts" and "complainers" going to feel if we have another attack when for over 2 years all they cared about was the footprints.

They'll say that additional attacks are our fault.

As always I still believe the towers rebuilding should have started 2 years ago and been replicas of the originals with a different name.

I agree that the rebuilding of the towers should have been well under way by now, but I'd keep the name. After all, it's still on the signs in the subway stations (Chambers Street 8th Avenue line and E train at Vesey St.) and prominently at the new PATH station.

[finnman69]

I saw the exhibit at the Winter Garden last week. I agree with the premise that some of the schemes are too gimmicky and rely on too many objects are strained metaphors. The votive candles, the translucent tombstones, the screens with faces on them. It's not that I don't mind the intent and I think they are quite creative. The biggest problem is I believe the memorials should do 3 things.

1.It should acknowledge the victims, those identified and identified. There are many ways to do this, and a laundry list of the names it not necessary, although Maya Lin's Vietnam memorial forever changed the way memorials will be viewed so I think a listing of the names somehow will be incorporated.

2. It should acknowledge the original towers for the engineering feat they represented and the sheer meaning of those incredible silhouetted on the skyline. After seeing the schemes in conjunction with models and renderings, I think 3 of the schemes come close to doing this. And they represent the loss of those buildings in a simple but powerful way.

3. The bathtub pit should not left open but with the exception of the tower footprints should be brought up to street level. This is a controversial idea since many families want the site open to the bedrock below. Although i understand the want for this, it is not a smart decision in the long run. If the families really want a memorial that is truly accessible to visitors, they will desire a raised urban plaza at street level that will engage the neighborhood and not become an urban barrier that by it's design forces humanity away from the site.

the three schemes I think have potential are:

Reflecting Absence

Inversion of Light

and to a lesser extent Lower Waters

I think these 3 schemes use the metaphor of a container, or more accurately the definition of a void to define the profile and missing void of the WTC towers. The absence of the towers, clearly delineated simultaneously recalls the victims who occupied the buildings and it records the grand physical achievement of the towers.

These schemes are somber and moving, and will help visitors remember the original WTC towers and their inhabitants for a 100 years and beyond. They are not perfect, and there will be further refinement of the finalists. I am positive that the final scheme will be a great monument that properly serves the victims, the human occupants, and the WTC Towers that contained them. http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1024918/posts
8 WTC Memorial Design Finalists Unveiled

[Redbob]

I'm with you:
The World Trade Center should be rebuilt much as it was, except perhaps taller, and flying from the top should be one of our very first flags, the rattlesnake "Don't Tread On Me" flag!

Perhaps with the rattler wrapped around a crescent...

[firebrand]

I can't get interested in the memorial issue, no matter how hard I try.

[oceanview]

I don't like the replica idea, too many bad memories if they looked exactly the same. and they would be too big, no one would rent space in the upper floors, etc.

what NYC needs is a state of the art structure there, modestly sized, but something that looks to the future, not back to the past. I would design something that captured the angle of the sun every calendar date of 9/11, and used it to illuminate the memorial part of the complex.

[alisasny]

well IMHO the upper floors would be the new UN headquarters : )

[oceanview]

I even think that new AOL/TW building is too high.

[Tabi Katz]

I may be the only person in NY who feels this way, but from the moment of the attacks I've wanted to see the original towers rebuilt exactly as they were - with one exception: I would add a few extra floors for good measure, and on these floors I would house the memorial. That would leave footprints alright, right in bin Laden's bony arse.

I'm less clear, though, on what I'd want the memorial to look like. I'll leave that to others.