Take Back The Memorial

WTC plan means army of cops, barriers and traffic hell

April 6th, 2008 by Tim Sumner

‘Security plan for WTC means army of cops, barriers and traffic hell’ is a New York Daily News headline today.

Click on image to enlarge.

Here is their report.

Items Returned Underscore a Loss: National 9/11 Museum

April 5th, 2008 by Tim Sumner

Robert J. Gschaar's $2 bill

David Dunlap writes in the New York Times this morning:

After two years of somewhat ad hoc acquisition, the [9/11] museum has started to deliberately collect items to illuminate the lives of those who died at ground zero. “We are dedicated to preserving the memory of each victim of the Sept. 11, 2001, and Feb. 26, 1993, attacks,” Joseph C. Daniels, the president and chief executive, and Alice M. Greenwald, the museum director, wrote in an e-mail message sent on Thursday to the victims’ families. [Ed. -- See copy of email after the jump.]

They continued: “We welcome you and your extended family and friends to help us build the permanent collection of the memorial museum by considering the donation of photographs, memorabilia, personal effects and other materials that are testaments to the lives and experiences of your loved ones.”

Mr. Dunlap elaborated on some contributions already made to the museum’s exhibits:

Before the couple married in 1989, Ms. Ramirez said, Robert gave Myrta a $2 bill and kept one for himself. They symbolized many things: that this would be the second marriage for both of them, that they were two of a kind, that it would be a second chance for happiness. Receipt of the $2 bill from the police was “what she needed to accept his death,” Ms. Ramirez said.

Much of the resonance in such objects is in the stories behind them, so the museum has invited victims’ families to participate in a digital archive, the Voices of September 11th Living Memorial, and recorded interviews produced by StoryCorps.

“The world doesn’t know these people the way their families know them,” Ms. Greenwald said. Having these narratives, she said, will help the museum deliver the message that “terrorism affects people just like us.”

The museum’s first major acquisition, in 2006, was a 7-foot-8-inch fiberglass Statue of Liberty that had stood outside the quarters of Engine Company 54, Ladder Company 4 and Battalion 9 in Midtown. Among the artifacts it will display is a 36-foot-6-inch segment of Column 1001-B of the south tower, the last to be removed from the site.

But Mrs. Gschaar’s gift makes clear that the power of memory can be conferred in dimensions hardly wider than a human finger.

She donated her husband’s wedding ring, also recovered by the police. Ms. Ramirez recalled her saying: “I don’t need it anymore. I’m eternally wed to him. I want it to be with the $2 bill.”

Robert J. Gschaar's wedding ring and World Trade Center building security pass

Here is a copy of the email my family received:

Dear Families:

It has been said that memorials are the way we make “promises to the future about the past.”[Kristin Ann Hass, 'Carried to the Wall.' University of California Press, 1998, page 38.] The National September 11 Memorial & Museum are being built to preserve memory, to honor terrorism’s innocent victims, and to educate for a better future. As our institution bears solemn witness to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 and February 26, 1993, we are equally committed to imagining a world where the threat of terrorism does not exist. By paying tribute to the 2,980 victims of the attacks, the Memorial Museum will demonstrate the consequences of terrorism on individual lives and its impact on families and communities. Families are at the heart of the 9/11 story; the great tragedy of terrorism is that it targets real people - mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, sons, daughters, cousins, aunts, uncles and grandparents. That is why your participation in the building of the Memorial Museum is so essential.

As we plan and design the exhibitions for the National September 11 Memorial Museum, we are dedicated to preserving the memory of each victim of the September 11, 2001 and February 26, 1993 attacks. As those who experienced that day, we share a solemn obligation to ensure that the history is passed on to our children and to every generation that follows. Through various media oral histories, digital archives, artifacts and expressions of tribute, the Memorial Museum will ensure that the lives of every one of the victims will be remembered for generations to come.

We would like to extend to you and your family a heartfelt invitation to participate in two of our core partnership programs: 9/11 Living Memorial, a memory-capture project of Voices of September 11th, a national 9/11 family advocacy and services group; and StoryCorps September 11th Initiative, a program of Sound Portraits Productions, Inc. affiliated with the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. We are honored to be working with these important organizations to create a vast collection of digitally-preserved and orally-recorded memories that will help us achieve the goal of individually honoring every one of the irreplaceable victims of these terrorist attacks.

In addition, we welcome you and your extended family and friends to help us build the permanent collection of the Memorial Museum by considering the donation of photographs, memorabilia, personal effects, and other materials that are testaments to the lives and experiences of your loved ones.

More information on these partnerships and programs can be found by clicking here.

The effort to build the Memorial & Museum is advancing with significant progress on many fronts, and we invite you to read about this progress in our 2007 year end update. To date, individual donations from over 60,000 people in all 50 states and 30 foreign countries have helped to raise over $325 million, bringing our $350 million capital campaign within reach. Over the past year, the Museum has moved forward with exhibition design planning and the acquisition of key artifacts. We also took a touring exhibition about the Memorial & Museum to 25 cities in 25 states in 2007, and were extraordinarily moved by the outpouring of support we witnessed for the project across the nation. Visitors from small towns and big cities came together to pay tribute to those who were killed in the attacks and those who helped our nation recover. We were humbled as we watched parents walk their children through the exhibition, sometimes with tears in their eyes, explaining to the younger generation what happened and how people across America and the world responded. And, as each visitor was invited to sign a steel beam that will become part of the foundational structure of the Memorial & Museum, we were deeply moved to see their expressions of pride and gratitude, knowing that now they too were part of this historic endeavor.

Your participation in building this Memorial Museum is so meaningful to us. We sincerely hope you will consider helping us realize our mission of remembrance, education and inspiration by participating in the Voices of September 11th Living Memorial, by agreeing to record a StoryCorps interview and by entrusting to our care materials that will enable us to preserve and honor the memory of your loved ones.

In the months to come, we look forward to keeping you apprised of our progress, and of other opportunities to share information about your loved ones at the Memorial Museum.

Warm regards,

Joseph C. Daniels
President & CEO

Alice M. Greenwald
Director, Memorial Museum

One Liberty Plaza
20th Floor
New York, NY 10006
phone (212) 312-8800
fax (212) 227-7931

Arizona House votes to alter 9/11 memorial

April 4th, 2008 by Tim Sumner

In 2006, Allahpundit at HotAir.com wrote of Arizona’s 9/11 memorial, “This is what happens to a memorial site when you let political activists design and build it.”

Back then, I added:

Across the street from the memorial in Phoenix sits a place for political discussions, Arizona’s state capitol building, which is where they should have left them. We objected to the now defunct International Freedom Center being on Ground Zero and becoming the gateway to the 9/11 memorial because it was going to be a $300 million center for political activism. A global network of human rights museums urged “the International Freedom Center to downplay America in its exhibits and programs at Ground Zero.” Instead of honoring the 9/11 dead at the memorial in Phoenix, they let political activists create a million dollar insult to them.

Fox News report on Arizona 9/11 memorial

Fox News’ William Lajeunesse asked Arizona 9/11 Memorial Commissioner Paul Eppinger to explain. When he responded, Eppinger revealed the commission had juxtaposed their own opinions of 9/11 onto the memorial:

“For me, what is means is that our foreign policy for years [emphasis added his] has focused on total support of Israel.”

When Lajeunesse asked him what [that] had to do with 9/11, Eppinger replied:

“I think that promoted the violence.” [Click here for the video]

In other words, 9/11 and the deaths of the 3,000 were America’s fault, we provoked al-Qaeda’s killers, according to Eppinger and the other activists on the commission.

This report is in The Arizona Republic this morning:

Arizona House votes to alter 9/11 memoria

An additional dozen inscriptions would be removed from the state’s embattled 9/11 memorial under a plan narrowly approved by House lawmakers Wednesday.

Those phrases — including “Must bomb back,” “Foreign-born Americans afraid” and “You don’t win battles of terrorism with more battles” — are etched into the memorial’s steel, disc-like face.

Memorial designers intended them to reflect the nation’s conflicted psyche in the days following the terrorist strikes of Sept. 11, 2001. Instead, they’ve helped keep the memorial roiled in controversy in the 18 months since its ‘06 dedication.

“I’ve always been saddened by the controversy that has engulfed our 9/11 memorial,” said the bill’s sponsor, Rep. John Kavanagh, a Fountain Hills Republican and former Port Authority officer. “I think we’re very close to resolving that controversy.”

If that’s the case, it was anything but apparent Wednesday. The measure passed on a 32-26, nearly party-line vote, with all but one Republican voting in favor and all but one Democrat against.
…
The 9/11 citizens commission that helped design the memorial already is working on its own revisions to the structure. They include the removal of two inscriptions considered most objectionable — “Erroneous U.S. air strike kills 46 Uruzgan civilians” and “Terrorist organization leader addresses American people” — and the addition of six new phrases. They are to be carved into a new introductory panel to be placed at the entrance to the memorial.

Kavanagh and other lawmakers say those changes don’t go far enough and plan a new private fund-raising effort for the broader revisions called for by the bill.

We will be watching.

In 2005, the nation embraced our rally cry, “No politics at Ground Zero — period,” against the International Freedom Center; they also do not belong on a 9/11 memorial in Phoenix.

Garbage dump no place of honor for 9/11 dead

February 25th, 2008 by Tim Sumner

Ground Zero memorial delayed 2 years

December 18th, 2007 by Tim Sumner

AP reporting via USA Today:

The opening of the memorial to victims of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks has been pushed back by two years until 2011, the agency building it said Tuesday.

The “Reflecting Absence” memorial will surround two waterfall-filled pools marking the World Trade Center tower footprints with a plaza of sweetgum and oak trees. Officials had said for years that it would open on Sept. 11, 2009, and that a museum set below street level was expected to open a year later.

Steve Plate, who oversees the rebuilding of the trade center site for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, outlined the latest construction schedule at a committee meeting Tuesday. By 2009, the steel for the memorial pools would be built up to street level, he said.

By 2010, the cobblestone-filled plaza surrounding the memorial pools would be “nearly complete,” he said. The entire memorial, museum and pavilion would be finished by 2011, Plate said.

Port Authority spokeswoman Candace McAdams said the schedule was revised to reflect a more realistic schedule that became clear after construction began.

“We see the reality, and want to operate on responsible timelines,” McAdams said Tuesday. “We’ll work as aggressively as possible to complete the project as soon as possible.”

Down in the dirt at Ground Zero

November 26th, 2007 by Tim Sumner

What glorious fools they all were.

Such unmitigated valor had been last seen in places forever burnished into the pages of our history books. Anyone who had flown B-17’s over Germany, sailed out to meet the Imperial fleet near Salvo Island, clung to that pier at Tarawa, hacked through the hedgerows beyond Normandy, cleared the streets of Hue in ‘68, turned east with the CAV towards Kuwait and the Republican Guard, or battled their way in and out of Mogadishu would have recognized them immediately — and gone with them. Yet most of the grunts of Ground Zero were “mere” civilians.

Where does America get so many magnificent people?

We had all seen the first wave decimated. As the dust dissipated, the rubble still shifted, metal creaked all around and above, alert pagers chirped, and a few radios broke squelch.

Was it over? Yes and no yet neither mattered. There was so much carnage, this faint hope, and all the fallen to find.

The second wave washed their faces, lowered their heart rates, and surged onto the Pile. America closed in and closed ranks behind them. Together, with whatever it took and given whatever they would need, to bedrock they charged, damning all else.

Turning the ‘Pile’ at the World Trade Center into an empty ‘Pit’ staggered the minds of those who first faced the task. In terms of weight, the shattered humanity of 2,749 people was a mere 1/100,000th of 200 million tons of wreckage. Bobby Gray gave some sense of it, in the book Nine Months at Ground Zero, while describing the evening of September 12, 2001:

That second night, I was at the edge of the pile with Sam Melisi of FDNY. I grabbed this operator named Dave who was in Local 15 and asked him to run the Bobcat, a little frontend loader that can hold about a yard of material. He went into the edge of the pile of debris, got a bucket, and backed it up. I don’t know where we were thinking we were gonna put the material, but then Sammy said, “Okay, stop him. Just shake it out a little bit. I’m going to go through it.”

I’m like, “Huh?”

I’m looking at the pile and then looking at this little bucket of material Sam’s sifting through by hand, running it through his f