Random listing of names on 9/11 memorial sparks pointed criticism

Newark Star Ledger ^ | 08.02.05 | Rudy Larini

[Coleus]

In the days after Sept. 11, 2001, Thomas Meehan remembers scouring the lists of those known dead and the lists of those who were missing for his daughter Colleen's name. 

Now that New Jersey is ready to memorialize its victims of the 9/11 attack, he said he doesn't want to have to try to find his daughter again. 

Meehan is among some two dozen families of 9/11 victims from New Jersey who have objected to the decision to list the names of the roughly 700 of their loved ones in random order on a memorial planned for Liberty State Park in Jersey City. 

"The last thing I want to have to do is visit a memorial where I again have to search for her name," said Meehan, 62, of Carteret. 

"Empty Sky," New York architect Frederic Schwartz's design for the New Jersey 9/11 memorial, was chosen from among 320 entries in a nationwide competition. 

Two stainless steel walls -- symbolizing the fallen Twin Towers -- set 16 feet apart will stretch 200 feet long and rise 30 feet high, forming a visual corridor focusing on the void where the World Trade Center once stood across the Hudson River. The name of each New Jersey resident who died will be engraved in nearly 4-inch-high lettering on the walls. 

In announcing the design last year, Schwartz said he chose to engrave the names randomly, rather than alphabetically or by any other category, such as by employer or civilian versus uniformed personnel.
.........

CONTINUED  1 | 2 | 3  Next

[Coleus]

I guess that no matter which way it goes, there's going to be lots of hand wringing about it. God Bless those people. I wish them peace and justice! >>

me too, and I bet somewhere along the line, someone's name wont' be listed, it happens all the time when large groups of people participate in something are thanked, etc. it almost always happens, someone is left out. It's probably better just to have a memorial.