Memorial to 9/11 Victims Is Selected

Associated Press ^ | January 06, 2004 | Amy Westfeldt

[AntiGuv]

NEW YORK - Two pools of water with pine trees and a paved stone field has been chosen as the design for the World Trade Center memorial, capping an eight-month international contest that drew more than 5,000 submissions, The Associated Press has learned.

"Reflecting Absence" created by city designer Michael Arad, was chosen by a 13-member jury of artists, architects, civic and cultural leaders after months of intense deliberation that culminated in a marathon 12-hour-long meeting this week.

The decision was to be announced publicly later Tuesday.

[NYC GOP Chick]

Build it and get it over with. The time is now for cranes, cement and construction workers, not endless bickering from hand-wringers who have more input on the project than the relatives of 9/11 victims themselves.

Easy for you to say. Is it YOUR neighborhood that was once a financial center being turned into a necropolis?! I, for one, think all the memorial designs (at least the ones we saw) are weepy, weak and sprawling.

[Texaggie79]

What happened to the tallest structure in the world that was all over the news a week or so ago?

[Mark was here]

Did something happen to the Twin Towers?

[NYC GOP Chick]

I have to be honest and say that I didn't like any of them. Too much the product of the Oprah Generation. Too weepy and pretentiously metaphorical for my taste. I prefer something simple and stark that doesn't dominate the site, or the neighborhood.

My heart sank to my knees when I kept reading about "large voids"; I have to ask just how much space this necropolis will consume? The more it takes, the less there is to rebuild the Financial District.

[NYC GOP Chick]

Thank you for that poignant poem, big bro. Very touching.

[Dan from Michigan]

Personally, I think it should have been shaped like a giant middle finger.

[NYC GOP Chick]

I just want the Twin Towers back....like they were before the planes hit that terrible morning.

That would be the most fitting memorial...

I've been saying that since the evening of 9/11/01. Although I'd settle for changes that include some extra height for the anti-aircraft artillery.

[NYC GOP Chick]

I like it too. It's powerful. The defiance others want will be expressed by the new towers.

What towers? The squatty "Freedom Tower" with permanent scaffolding atop it? Pffft!

[Rome2000]

New York is run by trade unionists, socialists, and homosexuals.

Small wonder that they intend to replace the World Trade Center with a pair of cheap looking motel swimming pools.

Stick a fork in it, New York is done.

[AnnaZ]

I agree with both of you.

 

They have a "Freedom Tower" going up that I think is lovely, and I do get the emptiness and sadness that this memorial evokes, I just disagree that that should be the prevailing mood. The spirit get sucked down with this (and it reminds me of a toilet), it is bereft of the "we shall overcome" mentality that has accompanied our real response. It needs to say "Look up!".

[NYC GOP Chick]

What about the major mold problem?

[AntiGuv]

The Freedom Tower will be on the northwest corner of the entire WTC site; you can sort of see it in that image I've posted at #22 in this thread (the tower right in the middle, though the design has changed - the one in the image above is Libeskind's original).

[NYC GOP Chick]

Thanks for maintaining that list! Here's what I submitted there just now:

One Year in My Neighborhood -- from shortly after the attacks through 9/11/02

[StoneColdGOP]

Personally, I think it should have been shaped like a giant middle finger.

Leave it to you to put oh so succinctly! (And I like your idea, too!)

[Mixer]

I just want the Twin Towers back....like they were before the planes hit that terrible morning.

I agree

[egarvue]

I agree with you. I like it.

[StoneColdGOP]

You know, it's like they're trying to get us to NOT feel angry anymore.

In my opinion a TERRIBLE mistake. If we walk away from 9/11 feeling anything different from the way we did on that day and afterwards when we saw the towers fall and saw people jumping to their deaths, we have done them the greatest dishonor possible.

The the place just becomes another memorial where someone, sometime long ago, died.

[NYC GOP Chick]

Huh?

[NYC GOP Chick]

Stunning photos you have on your profile page. I literally gasped when I saw them. You know, it's almost as if I don't believe that the towers ever really existed -- I can't see them in my mind's eye anymore.

[No Blue States]

I see it as a decision for the victims families and New Yorkers.

But if it were my choice...A huge park Planted with live oaks and perennials, low maintenance.

Granite blocks with the 3000 names engraved in them would also be nice surrounding the sprawling mass grave in the center for the top terrorists we catch with saddam being the 1st addition.