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 fingers. Then I had this realization that we would have to do this with the entire pile, all of it, every single bucket.

I thought, “Oh my God, there’s 50,000 people here.” We weren’t listening to the news or reading the paper. We didn’t know how many people were lost there yet. But I already knew we were not going to find many whole people. We were going to find parts, maybe millions of parts, and if there were 50,000 people in the pile, I knew two of them might be in that bucket.

It would not be that easy.

The destruction ran 70 feet deep to bedrock, towered seven stories above street level, plunged through nearby streets, crushed or crashed into adjacent buildings, and spread out in all directions over a field twice the size of the World Trade Center’s 16 acres. This photo, taken from the roof of the FDNY’s 10 House a few days later, shows but the southwest corner of the site.

They wanted what we all wanted: more miracles. Yet those fleeting hopes came with a price as this article Safety Becomes Prime Concern at Ground Zero, on November 8, 2001, in the New York Times illustrates:

Goggles, respirators, safety boots and helmets are mandatory for workers on the debris field. But the protection they provide, if they are worn and worn properly, can still be inadequate, as there have been 34 broken bones, 441 lacerations, more than 1,000 eye injuries and hundreds more burns, sprains and smashed fingers through Sunday.
…
From Sept. 21 to Oct. 7, for example, OSHA observed an average of 43 hazards on the site each day, ranging from workers not wearing proper protective gear, to dangers caused by improperly stored fuel tanks, to cranes that were dangerously assembled. By late October, the number had fallen to 33 a day.

Rates for some specific injuries have fallen even more sharply, according to the New York City Department of Health.

In the first three weeks after the attack, firefighters, construction workers and others sought medical assistance 6,342 times, for problems like broken bones, burns or more modest issues, like blisters or sprains. In the last three weeks, that number was 1,297, with 384 visits last week, the records show.

The most immediate threat is from the countless physical hazards at the site: the hot steel, the gas cylinders, the unstable debris piles, the cranes swinging back and forth.

The other primary threat is not as visible: the toxins that have been measured in the dusty air, or the smoke that rises from the fires still burning deep underground.
…
Part of the problem, particularly in the early weeks, was that many workers and firefighters did not wear proper respirators, leaving large numbers with lung irritations, coughs and perhaps even more serious injuries.

By the following May, they had brought up 200 bodies and scraped 20,000 human remains from every nook and cranny of hallowed ground they could lay their hands on. Even those bitterly earned numbers left 1,100 unidentified and the grinding collapse, fires, and time makes 100% identification seem impossible.

Some say that had the workers only known the danger, they would have been more careful. That is insulting; they were neither emotionally detached nor stupid. It burned beneath them for months (a year later, in the Pit, you could still taste it within the swilling dust). That assumes city officials are less human, cared less, and were not as shell-shocked as the rest of our nation. It also pretends that — at least in the early days — something less than the 82nd Airborne Division could have removed them by force.

Yet thousands from the second waive are now sick and perhaps dying and no one was found alive after September 12, 2001.

So, were they too brave?

They completed their mission within the limits of mere mortals, we owe them a debt that can never be paid, and that is a hell of question to ask about heroes.

Author’s note: The beginning of this commentary was originally published in October 2006. — Tim Sumner.

Ground zero flag is flying in Arlington, TX

October 17th, 2007 by Tim Sumner

From the Forth Worth Star-Telegram:

A U.S. flag that travels the world in honor of America’s fallen heroes returned home to Texas on Monday. Arlington will have the honor this week of flying the flag that flew over ground zero, the site of the attack on the World Trade Center in New York City.

Shortly after 9-11, Gov. Rick Perry arranged for the flag, which had been at half-staff over the Texas Capitol, to be sent to New York City. The flag was flown during the recovery efforts at ground zero and at the memorial services for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which owns the trade center site; and since then it has been taken around the world to honor fallen officers.

Water cannons saluted the airplane’s arrival at Dallas/Fort Worth Airport on Monday morning, and the Arlington Police Department’s honor guard escorted the flag to City Hall for an afternoon flag raising. It will fly at City Hall through Friday.

Arlington Police Chief Theron Bowman said the city’s opportunity to host the flag is a high honor.

“We at the Arlington Police Department, along with the families of our fallen officers, appreciate the sacrifice they made while serving our city,” Bowman said. “We welcome this occasion as another way to remember and honor our six heroes and to pay tribute to those fallen heroes in other parts of this great nation.”

In October 2004, the flag was taken to Kuwait, Qatar, and Iraq during a tour with American soldiers. The flag was flown over U.S. military camps and bases.

FDNY operating in the South Tower on 9/11

September 9th, 2007 by Tim Sumner

terrorists crash United Airlines Flight into the South Tower

At 9:03 a.m., on 9/11, terrorists crashed United Airlines Flight 175 into the World Trade Center’s South Tower. Four minutes later, the FDNY’s Battalion 7 Chief, his aide, and five firefighters from Ladder 15 — led by my wife’s brother — arrived in that tower’s lobby. While a FDNY City-Wide Tour Commander set up the command post there, a Deputy Chief (4 Bravo) moved from there to Tower 2’s staging area at West and Liberty Streets and the Battalion 7 Chief attempted to establish communications with the Battalion 1 Chief at the command post in the North Tower.

Battalion 7, his aide, and the five members of Ladder 15 then used a working service elevator that they had found and proceeded to the 40th floor. Their mission was to reach the fire floor, report on the situation there, and begin to direct the deployment of the additional units. This initial audio is of those firefighters, beginning at 9:07 and running through approximately 9:19 a.m. [Note: I have removed the 'open air' (the periods when no transmissions were made), extraneous transmissions, and several actual calls from within the South Tower from these audio recordings]:

Once they all reached the 40th floor, they began the ascent, with each carrying 60 to 80 pounds of gear. While climbing, they received a report of a way to those trapped above the fire floor from the “Director of Morgan Stanley” whom is believed to have actually been Morgan Stanley’s Director of Security, Rick Rescorla. Ladder 15 also received a report of another plane (probably while monitoring other radio channels). Additional units began arriving on the 40th floor. This audio runs from approximately 9:21 to 9:35 a.m.

They encountered the injured and directed them to the elevator. The following are brief excerpts from the New York Times’ Accounts from the South Tower, beginning on page 9, as published on May 26, 2002:

Judy Wein, survivor: Gigi and Judy, along with a man she had never before met [Ed Nicholls, also of Aon, who is interviewed separately] headed into the stairs. One at a time they moved down. Judy moved quickly down the stairs, so fast that she left Gigi at times behind her, one or two flights. Gigi would yell out Judy’s name on occasion, Judy announcing the floor numbers as they went down, 60, 55, 53. It was somehwere in the 50s that they encountered the first firefighter, she said. They were moving in small packs, carrying a load of heavy equipment, which clearly slowed them down. She told them that there were many injured people on the 78th floor, please help them. And they continued up. They told her to keep going down to the 40th floor, where there was an elevator bank. Her legs were trembling by the time she got there. She encountered two security guards and a firefighter, they told her to calm down. Not to rush. Take her time. But Judy just wanted to get out. An elevator came. Within another 10 minutes, they were outside. She was in the ambulance. The door was closed. She heard a noise. She turned to look. The south tower was coming down.

Ling Young, survivor: At the 51st floor, she met two firemen, and one of them decided to go down with her. She wasn’t aware of the fact that he had joined her until they got to the 40th floor, when he told her they could take the service elevator the rest of the way. She got out to Church Street, where she was placed in an ambulance. Moments after the ambulance pulled away to take her to a hospital, the tower she had been in fell to the ground.

Ed Nicholls, survivor: “These two guys came over. They were trying to figure out, because the fire was getting so bad. We knew we had to get out of there.” “The fire was not too far from us. We were watching it burn. It was decided between these two guys, one of them said, `Lets go back over to the other side where they came from.’ He thought that might be the best way to get down.” The other guy said “No, I don’t think so, I think there is a stairway over here. At this point it was getting very smoky.” One of those men pointed to the stairwell. [Other accounts say this man was wearing a red handkerchief] This was to be the route to safety. “And then the three of us, myself, Gigi and Judy headed toward that stairwell and started to go down the stairs.”

They continued to climb, attempted to find an elevator that terminated below the fire, and relayed to each other what they saw and who they found. More firefighters came up on their radio channel and, along with at least one NYPD Emergency Service Unit, were coming up the stairs behind them to assist. This audio runs from 9:37 a.m. to 9:50 a.m., approximately:

They reached the fire floor, witnessed the devastation, fought fires, found the way to those trapped above, and called for more units. This audio begins about 9:52 a.m:

South Tower collapses

The audio went silent at 9:59 a.m., when the South Tower collapsed.

We will never forget.

WTC plan means army of cops, barriers and traffic hell

Items Returned Underscore a Loss: National 9/11 Museum

Arizona House votes to alter 9/11 memorial

Garbage dump no place of honor for 9/11 dead

Ground Zero memorial delayed 2 years

Down in the dirt at Ground Zero

Ground zero flag is flying in Arlington, TX

FDNY operating in the South Tower on 9/11

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