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Take Back The Memorial
"Ground Zero has been stolen, right from under our noses. How do we get it back?" Excerpts from The Great Ground Zero Heist by DEBRA BURLINGAME From the Wall Street Journal, June 7, 2005.
"The World Trade Center Memorial will break ground this year. When those Marines return in 2010, the year it is scheduled to open, no doubt they will expect to see the artifacts that bring those memories to life. They’ll want a vantage point that allows them to take in the sheer scope of the destruction, to see the footage and the photographs and hear the personal stories of unbearable heartbreak and unimaginable courage. They will want the memorial to take them back to who they were on that brutal September morning. Instead, they will get a memorial that stubbornly refuses to acknowledge the yearning to return to that day. Rather than a respectful tribute to our individual and collective loss, they will get a slanted history lesson, a didactic lecture on the meaning of liberty in a post-9/11 world. They will be served up a heaping foreign policy discussion over the greater meaning of Abu Ghraib and what it portends for the country and the rest of the world." [...] "The public will have come to see 9/11 but will be given a high-tech, multimedia tutorial about man's inhumanity to man, from Native American genocide to the lynchings and cross-burnings of the Jim Crow South, from the Third Reich's Final Solution to the Soviet gulags and beyond. This is a history all should know and learn, but dispensing it over the ashes of Ground Zero is like creating a Museum of Tolerance over the sunken graves of the USS Arizona."
[...]
"...the IFC’s list of those who are shaping or influencing the content and programming for their Ground Zero exhibit includes a Who’s Who of the human rights, Guantanamo-obsessed world: • Michael Posner, executive director at Human Rights First who is leading the world-wide “Stop Torture Now” campaign focused entirely on the U.S. military. He has stated that Mr. Rumsfeld’s refusal to resign in the wake of the Abu Ghraib scandal is “irresponsible and dishonorable.” • Anthony Romero, executive director of the ACLU, who is pushing IFC organizers for exhibits that showcase how civil liberties in this country have been curtailed since September 11. • Eric Foner, radical-left history professor at Columbia University who, even as the bodies were being pulled out of a smoldering Ground Zero, wrote, “I’m not sure which is more frightening: the horror that engulfed New York City or the apocalyptic rhetoric emanating daily from the White House.” This is the same man who participated in a “teach-in” at Columbia to protest the Iraq war, during which a colleague exhorted students with, “The only true heroes are those who find ways to defeat the U.S. military,” and called for “a million Mogadishus.” The IFC website has posted Mr. Foner’s statement warning that future discussions should not be “overwhelmed” by the IFC’s location at the World Trade Center site itself. • George Soros, billionaire founder of Open Society Institute, the nonprofit foundation that helps fund Human Rights First and is an early contributor to the IFC. Mr. Soros has stated that the pictures of Abu Ghraib “hit us the same way as the terrorist attack itself.”
[...]"The so-called lessons of September 11 should not be force-fed by ideologues hoping to use the memorial site as nothing more than a powerful visual aid to promote their agenda. Instead of exhibits and symposiums about Internationalism and Global Policy we should hear the story of the courageous young firefighter whose body, cut in half, was found with his legs entwined around the body of a woman. Recovery personnel concluded that because of their positions, the young firefighter was carrying her." [...] "Ground Zero has been stolen, right from under our noses. How do we get it back?" "Ms. Burlingame is a member of the board of directors of the World Trade Center Memorial Foundation and the sister of Charles F. “Chic” Burlingame III, pilot of American Airlines fight 77, which was crashed at the Pentagon on September 11, 2001." Ms. Burlingame's full commentary can be found here here. Bill Bennett's radio interview with Ms. Burlingame is here. How You Can Help Take Back The Memorial
Contact America's Mayor
Giuliani Partners LLC
5 Times Square
New York, NY 10036
Tel: 212.931.7300
Fax: 212.931.7310
Contact the International Freedom Center Board of Directors & Staff
120 Broadway, 31st Floor
New York, NY 10271
Fax: (212) 336-6727 IFC Chairman Tom Bernstein 212-336-6200 (Chelsea Piers Complex)
IFC President Richard Tofel
Contact the World Trade Center Memorial Foundation
Contact Your US Congressional Representative
Contact Your US Senator(s)
Contact NY Mayor Michael Bloomberg
Contact NY Governor George Pataiki
Contact The White House
Do YOUR part. Use this contact information, NOW. For more information: 911@takebackthememorial.org
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Quote:
"Ground Zero has been stolen, right from under our noses. How do we get it back?"
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Quote:
the G-man said:
Quote:
"Ground Zero has been stolen, right from under our noses. How do we get it back?"
Yeah! Fuck Bush!
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Mr. G- Man, Have You No Sense of Decency" ... Have you left no sense of decency?
Everything is funny as long as it is happening to somebody else. --Will Rogers
"I don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees." - George W. Bush
I don't think anybody could have predicted that these people would .. try to use an airplane as a missile, a hijacked airplane as a missile. - Condoleeza Rice
Barbara Bush: It's Good Enough for the Poor
To comfort the powerless and make the powerful uncomfortable.
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If, by "decency," you mean "a belief that a memorial to the victims of 9/11 should be a litiny of abuses allegedly committed by the US government over 200 years," then you are correct that I have none.
The memorial should be a memorial the victims and the fallen heroes of that day. Neither side should co-opt it for politics.
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Why is this thread stickied?
If karma's a bitch, it will be my bitch!
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Who really gives a shit about the memorial? The WSJ wants to use it to promote their imperialist asperations, a monument to 21st century jingoism. The liberals want to use it to promote....who the fuck knows???
Put a plaque on Liberty St. and build something useful like office buildings or apartments. Maybe Donald Trump could put in a hotel and casino? Who wants to hang in Lower Manhattan anyway? The only things there are office buildings, lunch stands and a few tittie bars.
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WTC Memorial spot or not, NOBODY who lived through 9 - 11 is going to forget that it happened.
I have felt since Day one that the towers should be rebuilt in the same spot. It would be our way of saying a hearty FUCK YOU to the terrorists who destroyed the original towers.
But put plaques on the new towers. And a memorial room or floor in both.
It's hallowed ground, yes, but this is not the Titanic. It sunk in 2 and a half miles of ocean. This area ought to be re - generated as a Tribute that life goes on after a terrible loss.
"I offer you a Vulcan prayer, Mr Suder. May your death bring you the peace you never found in life." - Tuvok.
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It really should be just about 9/11 & not some massive thing covering other events.
Fair play!
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Exactly.
We can tell the truth, without bias or slant or propaganda that serves only to further a partisan political agenda, left or right.
We can tell the story of how the passengers of the flight that crashed in Pennsylvania fought off their hijackers, sacrificing themselves to save the lives of an unknown number of others.
We can tell people about the police and firefighters who ran into the burning buildings as everyone else ran out.
We can tell the stories of the workers who risked life and limb to dig through the burning, toxic rubble in the hopes of saving anyone who might be left alive.
And then we can just leave it at that. No politics, no jingoism or anti-americanism, no racism or attempts at moral equivalence.
Just what happened and nothing else.
And that is why I stickied this thread.
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I agree with Beard... Rebuild the towers, and maybe erect a small but meaningful memorial statue either on the main floor or outside the towers. Though, it might not be a bad idea to devise some sort of plan for safe, rapid exit, so that, in case of another disaster, civilians would not be forced to leap from windows.
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parachutes on every floor!
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Stupid Doog said: parachutes on every floor!
LoL.. Or when they build the new new towers, have them be huge transforming robots that could transform and stop any future attacks on them....
"I offer you a Vulcan prayer, Mr Suder. May your death bring you the peace you never found in life." - Tuvok.
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Gotta put something there. Do you know how much square footage can be built there? In Manhattan???
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NY Daily News: The lower Manhattan Development Corp. wants to keep a controversial SoHo gallery in the planned Ground Zero cultural center - but the gallery director says it won't stay unless it has complete artistic freedom.
"The LMDC knows that we would never be able to accept censorship," Catherine de Zegher, director of the Drawing Center, told Crain's New York Business. "Now they have to come to us with their decision."
The gallery and the rebuilding agency have been scrambling since late last month, when Gov. Pataki demanded that arts groups given spots at Ground Zero promise the LMDC to "respect the sanctity of that site," adding that if not, "they shouldn't be there."
The News last month spotlighted some recent works shown at the Drawing Center that outraged the families of some World Trade Center victims.
One drawing, called "A Glimpse of What Life in a Free Country Can Be Like," featured a hooded figure, evocative of Abu Ghraib prison. Another, "Homeland Security," showed four planes swooping from the sky - one toward a naked woman.
Some groups representing 9/11 victims' families say they don't want anything on the site detracting from the memorial.
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Pretty dumb to allow an art gallery there. Artists try to provoke a reaction. The symbolism of the location of the gallery must be irrestistable for those wanting to make a point.
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Agreed. I have no problem with the aforementioned art, but it belongs somewhere else. Let the people grieve in peace.
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Quote:
theory9 said:
Agreed. I have no problem with the aforementioned art, but it belongs somewhere else. Let the people grieve in peace.
I think a fitting memorial would be non denominational, in a Modernist style like the buildings that stood there. It should be underground, close to the remains of the burned and pulverized victims. Perhaps circular with glass walls illuminated to show the actual ground of Ground Zero. Niches for the lighting of candels, kneelers for prayer and benches to sit and contemplate. Perhaps a wall with victims names a la The Vietnam War Memorial. The place is a mausoleum, after all.
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To me, it should very similar to the USS Arizona which is, also, technically a mausoleaum. Something very similar to the Vietnam War Memorial would also be a good design choice.
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Agreed. A proper show of respect is what's needed, not cheap theatrics.
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Quote:
the G-man said: To me, it should very similar to the USS Arizona which is, also, technically a mausoleaum.
While I agree with that sentiment entirely, the problem with the place is that its the most expensive piece of commercial real estate in the world. People will want to make money out of it, bombings or no.
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Quote:
First Amongst Daves said:
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the G-man said: To me, it should very similar to the USS Arizona which is, also, technically a mausoleaum.
While I agree with that sentiment entirely, the problem with the place is that its the most expensive piece of commercial real estate in the world. People will want to make money out of it, bombings or no.
I never said it shouldn't be used for anything else. That's why I thought of a memorial below the surface. If you'll recall, there was a huge transit facility and mall complex under the centre. Bring that back. Let any shop or gallery that wants to rent space do so. Build whatever types of buildings you want on the surface. I don't think Lower Manhattan is home to the most expensive real estate in the world, either. Midtown, maybe but not where those monstrocities stood. They roll up the sidewalks at 6:00 pm down there!
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It appears that the America-bashers are still at it: A global network of human rights museums is urging the International Freedom Center to downplay America in its exhibits and programs at Ground Zero.
The outrageous request is the latest controversy to torment the Freedom Center, whose leaders have tried to dispel the perception that it would be a home for America bashers.
"Don't feature America first," the IFC has been advised by the consortium of 14 "museums of conscience" that quietly has been consulting with the Freedom Center for the past two years over plans for the hallowed site. "Think internationally, where America is one of the many nations of the world."
Those words rang hollow with some 9/11 family members.
"I can't think of a greater insult than to invite museums from other countries of the world to come and exploit what should be America's memorial," said Jack Lynch, who helped carry the body of his firefighter son Michael, 30, out of the rubble.
The firefighters union already has demanded the Freedom Center be booted from Ground Zero, and state officials have given it until Sept. 23 to satisfy the objections of family members.
Located in nine countries on five continents, the coalition museums chronicle apartheid in South Africa, slavery in Senegal, torture in Argentina, racism in the South and internment of Japanese-Americans in California, along with other historical horrors.
"No one in the civilized world would ever defend what happened on 9/11," said Sarwar Ali, the coalition's chairman and a trustee of the Liberation War Museum in Bangladesh.
"But what happened after 9/11 - with restrictions placed on human rights and the cycle of revenge and the allegations of human rights abuses in prisons - must also be explored," Ali said in a call from London.
Coalition members gathered for their annual conference at a Holocaust site in the Czech Republic in July 2004 - and assailed the United States for "reasserting its power in an arrogant way," the conference report shows.
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While I don't think they should "downplay" America, if they're going to call it the "Freedom" Center than it should be more international than just America and 9/11. If they want it to be a memorial then they should call it that.
Bow ties are coool.
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I gotta give Hillary credit for this one. HILLARY COMES OUT AGAINST FREEDOM CENTER: Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton yesterday dealt a crushing blow to the International Freedom Center planned for Ground Zero, saying she wants the project canned for failing to listen to the 9/11 families.
"I cannot support the IFC," Clinton declared last night in a strongly worded statement in response to an inquiry from The Post.
Her tough comments are Clinton's first significant remarks about the controversy raging at Ground Zero over the Freedom Center, which 9/11 families and other critics fear will become a center of anti-Americanism.
"While I want to ensure that development and rebuilding in lower Manhattan move forward expeditiously, I am troubled by the serious concerns family members and first responders have expressed to me," Clinton said.
"The LMDC [Lower Manhattan Development Corp.] has authority over the site and I do not believe we can move forward until it heeds and addresses their concerns."
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Quote:
r3x29yz4a said: While I don't think they should "downplay" America, if they're going to call it the "Freedom" Center than it should be more international than just America and 9/11. If they want it to be a memorial then they should call it that.
.......You're the UN's gimp aren't you?
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Quote:
Pariah said:
Quote:
r3x29yz4a said: While I don't think they should "downplay" America, if they're going to call it the "Freedom" Center than it should be more international than just America and 9/11. If they want it to be a memorial then they should call it that.
.......You're the UN's gimp aren't you?
yes. because i see the world as existing for more than America's war and travel industries.
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Yes, and the U.N. has done such a bang up job fighting genocide, terrorism and despotism, not to mention the way it always puts human rights ahead of its members' economic interests.
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the G-man said: Yes, and the U.N. has done such a bang up job fighting genocide, terrorism and despotism, not to mention the way it always puts human rights ahead of its members' economic interests.
You really were born in the wrong era, G-man. You'd of made a great Bircher. Do you have Roy Cohns old office at the DOJ in NYC?
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Pataki Ousts Freedom Center From Ground Zero Gov. George Pataki on Wednesday ousted a proposed freedom museum from its site at ground zero, declaring that the International Freedom Center has generated “too much opposition, too much controversy” to remain.
The decision follows months of acrimony over the Freedom Center, with furious families and politicians saying that the museum would dishonor the memory of the 2,749 people who died at the World Trade Center.
“We must move forward with our first priority, the creation of an inspiring memorial to pay tribute to our lost loved ones and tell their stories to the world,” Pataki said in a statement.
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how about rebuilding the goddamn towers?
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Quote:
Stupid Doog said: how about rebuilding the goddamn towers?
Did you ever spend time in those buildings? They made for a pretty picture but functionally they sucked. The elevator system especially.
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we talked about this a bit here. i'm totally in favor of reimagining the wtc and bringing them back for a new generation.
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A Memorial needs to address three functions:
1. It is sacred ground. We need a funerary monument to the victims as well as a place for survivors to mourn.
2. We need to recognize the historic significance of the place and events. What happened here echoes through the world and will continue to do so for at least 100 years. For the USA I see it as a place significance similar to Harper's Ferry, Virginia. The beginning of something that will affect us for a very long time.
3. The ground needs to be returned to its role in the day to day life of Lower Manhattan.
A multi-denominational spiritual space for mourners and remembrance, perhaps beneath the ground with portals to allow for the entrance of natural light. Think glass. Lots of glass.
Above the memorial an office complex of mid rise buildings, like the ones that used to be across Liberty Street and the commodity trading newer parts of the WTC.
How about a 21st century monument to commemorate a 21st century tragedy? A gigantic holographic scale image projected at dusk into the NY sky. A ghostly reminder of what once was.
"Conservatives are not necessarily stupid, but most stupid people are conservatives." John Stuart Mill
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criminy!
i've always been in favor of simplicity for a memorial. it doesn't have to be an artist's (or arteest's) life-long vision, with twisted shapes of steel and repeating loops of music encrusted upon jewels or whatever.
i'm also against setting a somber tale, with dimmed silence and underground chambers, like a trip into hades.
why not make a tribute? something calming and reflectively appreciating what was lost, but something that also strives towards the future and proverbial (and hopefully literal) rebuilding.
i actually really like the tribute in light beams. i think they're simple and amazingly effective. classy, beautiful, and fitting. i'd love to see those every night.
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Quote:
magicjay38 said:
Quote:
Stupid Doog said: how about rebuilding the goddamn towers?
Did you ever spend time in those buildings? They made for a pretty picture but functionally they sucked. The elevator system especially.
I didn't mean rebuilding them exactly the way they were when they fell.
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Rob Kamphausen said: criminy!
i've always been in favor of simplicity for a memorial. it doesn't have to be an artist's (or arteest's) life-long vision, with twisted shapes of steel and repeating loops of music encrusted upon jewels or whatever.
i'm also against setting a somber tale, with dimmed silence and underground chambers, like a trip into hades.
why not make a tribute? something calming and reflectively appreciating what was lost, but something that also strives towards the future and proverbial (and hopefully literal) rebuilding.
i actually really like the tribute in light beams. i think they're simple and amazingly effective. classy, beautiful, and fitting. i'd love to see those every night.
I think you see a grander vision than I intended. Memorializing the victims and a place is a temporary need. The people who experienced personal loss are short term clients. For them this is "a somber tale". In 50 years most of the people with vivid memories will be dead. Putting that portion underground puts survivors close to remains and also keeps it out of the way as its function diminishes.
The main emphasis of my vision is returning the site to daily use. Restore it to use as a commercial campus.
The holograph is essentialy the same as the light memorial. A bit more grandiose, perhaps, but I'm the kina guy that would love to live at Versailles.
"Conservatives are not necessarily stupid, but most stupid people are conservatives." John Stuart Mill
America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between. Oscar Wilde
He who dies with the most toys is nonetheless dead.
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A sister's lonely vigil
Rosaleen Tallon never thought she would have to camp out on a New York City sidewalk on a cold winter night.
Then again, the soft-spoken mother of two toddlers who holds a Ph.D. in education from Columbia University never imagined living life without her younger brother, Sean Tallon, a firefighter who died on 9/11 at age 26.
Tallon, 34, has vowed to sleep across the street from Ground Zero every night to protest against the planned World Trade Center memorial. She is part of an opposition that has grown more vocal approaching tomorrow's groundbreaking.
"I'm doing this to raise awareness that the memorial we're building, the main part is underground," Tallon said as she sat bundled up in blankets on a blue chair in front of Engine 10 on Liberty St., where her Marine brother had served just eight months before he died.
On Friday, the third night of Tallon's sit-in, she arrived at 10p.m., an hour after she tucked her kids into bed.
"I will be down here as long as it takes," Tallon said, acknowledging that she's an unlikely activist. "I'm not militant. I'm just a regular New Yorker."
Reflecting Absence, the winning design for the memorial, leads visitors several stories underground and has the names of the dead listed in random order - two key points of contention for some families.
"They're asking us to go underground. [But] I'm not dwelling on the void the terrorists created, I'm dwelling on the life my brother lived," she said.
One month before Sean Tallon ran across the street to the World Trade Center, he beamed with happiness at his sister's wedding.
"During the father-daughter dance, my father's knee was bad and it was hard for him, so Sean took my mother on the floor and the four of us were dancing," a tearful Tallon said.
In the nights she has spent in front of the firehouse, several firefighters who knew her brother have stopped by to share silly yet poignant memories.
"I could hear Sean's laughter. It's like he was sharing it with me," she said.
On her first night, Wednesday, she said she gazed at Ground Zero and thought of the people who died there. "I could still feel their spirits," she said with a slight smile.
Tallon and her brother last saw each other four days before 9/11 at a small Irish cafe in Yonkers.
"We were there listening to a band. At the end of the night he said, 'I gotta go.' He walked uphill and that was it," she said, dabbing at her eyes.
"I want the memorial to be up where it's filled with light, like he was going up," Tallon said. "We will never go underground to remember."
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