Model of Flight 93 memorial
Posted on 09/10/2005 1:14:53 PM PDT by wagglebee
A Pennsylvania pastor is fighting the newly approved design of the Flight 93 National Memorial, contending its crescent pattern is a symbol of Islam.
Rev. Ron McRae, head of the Bible Anabaptist Church near Jerome, Pa., about 55 miles from Pittsburgh, said a private group he formed might go to court to block the "Crescent of Embrace" memorial designed by Paul Murdoch Associates of Los Angeles.
"This is a memorial to the terrorists who killed those people, not a memorial to the folks who died there innocently," McRae told the Tribune-Democrat newspaper in Johnstown, Pa.
McRae of Conemaugh Township, Pa., is director and founder of the Lancaster-based Street Preachers Fellowship.
The heart of the memorial is a mile-long semicircle of red maples surrounding the place near Shanksville, Pa, where the flight's 40 passengers and crew were killed when the hijacked plane plunged into the ground Sept. 11, 2001.
The designer maintains he used the term crescent only in the architectural sense of a curved line.
"This is not about any religion per se," Murdoch told the Tribune-Democrat. "It's a spiritual space, and a sacred place, but it's open to anyone."
But McRae vows to fight it.
"They wouldn't dare put up the Ten Commandments or the cross of Christ, but they're going to put up a red crescent," he said. "We're not going to stand idly by and allow this to happen."
Several weblogs raised similar concerns about the design.
Charles Johnson at Little Green Footballs asked: "Is this a coincidence, an example of amazing cluelessness, or something more deliberate?"
Ed Morrissey at Captain's Quarters said, "Can you imagine the outcry from the multiculturalists and the ACLU had the design incorporated a cross or a Star of David in honor of the victims? Why should we tolerate the Crescent that, inadvertently or deliberately, honors the terrorists?
Model of Flight 93 memorial
bttt
trying to figure out which is worse... this one, or the one in NYC???
this one, definitely.
the Freedom Tower design is simply ugly, not insulting.
if, otoh, you refer to the crap leftist asshattery going on with the design of the GXmemorial... damn, that'd be a tough call.
GZ memorial.
duhhhh.
As another poster noted on the original thread, there is also a "Tower of Voices" in this design, which is simply too much like another way of saying minaret to be a coincidence in my view.
you jest?!?
ok, that settles it: there is NO WAY this design is in any way an innocent coincidence.
To be clear, Stockhausen is a composer with no connection that I know of to Paul Murdoch (the architect) other than seeming to share some of his artistic pretensions.
On the other hand, Murdock's website boast of a connection to fellow architect Richard Meier, who once designed a house that featured a elongated penis shaped extension complete with cascading white circular steps leading down to the ocean -- perhaps a somewhat less subtle use of imagery.
I'm serious.
Here's the sludge from the website:
Paul Murdoch Architects, Nelson Byrd Woltz, RBA Partners, Sato & Boppana, Davis Langdon, George Saxton Associates, Clayton Lee Rugh, Paulynn Cue, Aleksander Novak-Zemplinski, Design Models, Inc., Steve Payne
GATEWAY
Tall enough to be seen from the highway, the TOWER OF VOICES heroically marks the entry to and exit from the Park. Set on a planted mound in a clearing, within resonating rings of White Pines, the Tower houses forty white aluminum wind chimes. The continuing songs of chimes in the wind celebrate a living memory of those who are honored. The outside of the curved concrete tower wall is finished with white glass mosaic tiles to create a reflective, ephemeral quality, and blue plaster inside to evoke the sky. At night, the Tower interior is evenly grazed with light and the exterior illuminated as a beacon. Near the Tower there is parking, public restrooms and an information/orientation kiosk.
APPROACH/RETURN
Visitors are able to drive or bike through the site on the two-lane Approach Road, matching the route of the existing Haul Road, to the entrance of the Bowl. Pedestrian trails, originating from the Tower, lead through the woods at the site’s western edge and at higher elevations to the east overlooking the Park. A one-lane Return Road allows visitors elevated views of the Tower to the north and views back to the Bowl. Areas of the mining landscape, especially with higher soil and water toxicity, are treated with phytoremediation using plants such as poplars, sunflowers and mustards. The healing of the landscape prepares the visitor, as a metaphor, for the emotional healing of the memorial. Existing draglines are removed but components, like their buckets, are preserved to mark overlook locations.
[ ... ]
No they are not, but they are the sea through which the terrorists swim.
Yes...and?
And that makes them feel very happy. Their guys can strike for the Glory of Islam while they stand on the sidelines and cheer.
Kinda that "You're either with us or against us" stuff.
I agree!!!
No one is THAT STUPID!
They keep on doing this with this so-call public art and memorials!
To be honest, I'm not sure what to think of the whole crescent deal. Maybe it is pro-terror, maybe it isn't.
But I definitely oppose this memorial on the grounds that it's architecture is ugly new age horse apples and that it doesn't memorialize the heroism, courage, and bravery fo flight 93.
I see this memorial and its themes and concepts and instead of feeling the pride, honor, bravery, and patriotism of the heroes of flight 93 I felt nothing. And that really cheeses me off. this is a war memorial for crying out loud! You can't have weepy/huggy sentimental saccharine malarkey in a war memorial! I don't like the Freedom tower but it is 500 times better than this "Crescent of Barf." It's ugly but it's got freedom in its name, it's 1776 ft high, and it's got a sword pointing into heaven. Man I see that tower and it's themes and I feel everything that stupid memorial doesn't give me.
I think that the best way is not to scream at murcdoch or rendell, dept. of the interior or any of those guys about the "crescent of islam" aspect. A lot of Americans, although anti-terror are not anti-Islam. If you make it an issue about Islam you get two reactions. One is that the families simply won't care about the crescent aspect. They'll probably see it as just a crescent and disregard it. Worse, they will not like the anti-Islam aspect and oppose us tooth and nail as racist/discriminating maniacs.
More importantly, we would be opposing the wishes of the 93 families. If we just scream and yell, the libs will spin it to make us look bad. I can see the headlines now...
"RADICAL EXTREMIST RIGHT WING RACISTS OPPOSING WISHES OF FLIGHT 93 FAMILIES!!!!!!"
The best way is to convince the families of flight 93 heroes that our guys and gals deserve a hell of alot better than this and emphasize not the crescent of islam but it's themes and architecture. This will definitely get more people on our side.
Just so wrong. They can't go forward with this!
Did the forest stay cleared? I read they tried cutting it down in the 1990s and that it grew back (or perhaps some neo-Nazi seeded it).
Get the ACLU involved. They oppose church and state, right?
Using a religious symbol would appear to fall in their outrage list. Oh wait, it wasn't a cross. Nevermind.
Well he did say it was a "sacred place".
I wonder, what sort of memorial is there in Beslan where 400+ children were raped and murdered by Islamonazis.
You nailed it. I despise the cockroaches of ACLU and anyone who has any connection with that organization should be nowhere near government at any level of the US. But I can't stress enough that to get the design changed you must contact the judges, esp the 93 families. We have a FReeper here on who lost his father in flight 93 and he's ok with the memorial. It is very likely that others are ok with it too. We must hold a civilized debate and try to convince them this ugly saccharine slop doesn't do justice to our heroes.
Wind chimes, "embrace", trees... Retch.
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