"It's unrealistic for anyone to expect that every piece of tissue,every bone fragment,every wallet will be accounted for at Ground Zero."
That's why it should be left as a permanent memorial garden instead of building commercial buildings on it again. Imagine someone coming in and building a skyscraper at Arlington.
The terrorists who struck on 9-11 wanted to turn a big piece of the most lively city in the world into sad, desolate place. You are proposing we accede to their wishes.
A nation that loves the memory of its honored forebears more than the future of its children is past its prime. The only fitting memorial to the honorable men and women that died on September 11 is to rebuild lower Manhattan into a place that is more beautiful, vital and lively than it was before.
Sorry,can't agree with this.I don't know how familiar you are with Manhattan,but the "downtown" area (that is,the southern tip) is very,very valuable real estate...perhaps some of the most valuable in the world (except,perhaps,Tokyo and Hong Kong).The NYSE is located not far from Ground Zero as is City Hall and,I believe,the world headquarters of at least one or two of the biggest banks in the world (Chase and the Bank of New York) are headquartered there too.
Yes,some sort of memorial should be placed there...absolutely! But just as London,and Hiroshima were rebuilt after WWII,Ground Zero should also be rebuilt.
different situation - Arlington was meant to be a cemetary from its inception. If you turn ground zero into a cemetary, the terrorists have won. Those who died at ground zero are already memoralized in a cemetary elsewhere of their families choosing.
I agree with taking every REASONABLE measure to recover the human remains, then move on. The important part of everyone who died there is elsewhere (either heaven or hell), and recovering other bits of tissue will not change that.
I do not mean to sound calloused, I would say the same if I had family members killed at ground zero. We need to move on, but never forget.
Lower Manhattan is for the living. To turn the most economically vibrant - and most historically economically vibrant - part of New York into a graveyard would be to hand the terrorists exactly what they wanted. They WANTED to turn lower Manhattan into a graveyard, they HATED its life, its dynamism, its power, its creativity, its sizzle and its promise. HATED IT!
New York should not surrender to terrorists. Recover the remains to the safest extent possible (and for godsakes don't break the bathtub doing it) and return New York to its normal spectacular splendor, unique in the world, ensuring the terrorists' defeat.
The U.S. is full of grassy meadows, if you want one, go to one where they already are.
No surrendering to terrorists' will.
Fine. We should only build on spots where no one has ever died.
When I visit Antarctica, can I stay at your place?
I disagree. Arlington Cemetary BEGAN as Robert E. Lee's family's private home, but was expropriated for use as a cemetery for UNION soldiers. If someone built a commercial building there now, 150 years after the Civil War, that would be a travesty.
The WTC, on the other hand, had been the center of the bustling business core of NYC for over 25 years. NOT building it back, or something that would take its place in the business world would be the travesty. Make the first floor a memorial, but build that complex back and make it even more proftable than before. THAT would be the way to honor the dead and poke a stick in the eye of the terrorists.
It's hardly a National cemetary- And I personally knew one of the deceased. Building the towers as Trump suggested would be the greatest memorial to those people.
Arlington National Cemetary was designed as an insult and intentional slap at the Confederacy. In case you're unaware of the former owner of that property, it was General Robert E. Lee (well, actually his wife). While the property was initially confiscated by the government, the SCOTUS eventually held that it had been taken without due process, and the ownership of the property was granted to a decendant of General Lee. Eventually, he sold it back to the government.
Remember, that the WTC was private property. Making it a "permanant memorial garder" would in effect be stealing some of the most expensive property on the face of the earth. Or would have have the government buy it?
Mark
The best Memorial would be to rebuild the World Trade Center as it was, with a plaque in the lobby.
Not quite the same - that was relatively undeveloped land, a plantation, originally set aside for the specific purpose of a national cemetery for dead servicemen of the Civil War.
The World Trade Center was an urban site of an attack. Should London have refused to rebuild the urban areas devastated by the bombings of the Germans? I'm sure not all of the remains were recovered from those collapsed buildings.