Tuesday, September 10, 2013

Twelve Years Later


Image via UCSBRepublicans

Twelve years after 9/11 there is a “memorial” at Ground Zero. It is not a monument or a statue. There is no human form, no representation of the event, its consequences, or our resolve in the face of it. There are two holes in the ground. Water runs into them like storm drains. The names of the dead are inscribed on panels surrounding the . . . drains.

Was this the best we could do?

Yet to open on the site, twelve years after 9/11, is a memorial museum with a “projected $60 million operating budget.”

$60 million a year.

The museum hopes it “can cover 60% of its operating budget with earned revenue, including admissions, gift-shop sales and concessions.”

A 9/11 gift shop.

“The museum plans to charge roughly $20 for adult admission.”

Shameful.

The museum’s “creative director” originally considered Tom Franklin’s iconic photograph of firefighters raising the flag amid the rubble too kitschy and “rah-rah American” to include in the exhibit.

Disgraceful.

Twelve years later, the new One World Trade Center Building (formerly the “Freedom Tower”) is still not complete. Its office space is only half leased.

Pathetic.

Twelve years later, I see 9/11 remembered better elsewhere. Today on West Beach in Santa Barbara, California, the UCSB College Republicans will set out 2,977 flags, one for each person who perished that day. They do it as volunteers so that their generation will never forget.



And on a shady residential street in Montclair, New Jersey can be found, as on every day of the year, a plaque remembering a friend and neighbor. Today the flowers are fresh. And so is the pain of loss.

3 comments:

+ Q Perfume Blog said...

Dear Avery, I have never spoken about this to Americans afraid I would hurt patriotic feeling, but it did bother me A LOT to see that your country actually BRANDED a terrorist attack. It is shameful. Selling postcards, books, videos, cd's, dvd's and all that souvenirs in the Ground Zero site made me actually sick to my stomach.
people holding family and friends and taking shots there as if they were taking a picture with Mickey Mouse in Disneyland also makes me sick to my stomach. People actually smile on these pictures like it is an awesome moment being there!
What is wrong with this people??? Nothing. It is cultural, so I don't understand why are you so surprised with all that. Frankly...
i have never seen people in Israel taking pictures in YAD VASHEM like if being in the holocaust museum is some sort of happy event.
To me being inside the Ground Zero (which I got tickets from free, otherwise I would not enter to it) made me sad, introspective and very depressed. walking around the whole area and seeing it DEAD when once was a pulsating financial area made me cry. i felt as bad as I felt the day I went to Yad Vashem.
Israelis would NEVER sell postcards of the Dolphinarium Club in Tel Aviv where hundreds of teenagers were murdered by terrorists. NEVERRRRR.
It is insulting for the memories of those who actually lost someone there.
That said, those are my thoughts and I am apologizing in advance if my opinion ofends anyone who reads your blog, or even you...but all Ground Zero issue is so wrong to my eyes...

+ Q Perfume Blog said...

Dear Avery, I have never spoken about this to Americans afraid I would hurt patriotic feeling, but it did bother me A LOT to see that your country actually BRANDED a terrorist attack. It is shameful. Selling postcards, books, videos, cd's, dvd's and all that souvenirs in the Ground Zero site made me actually sick to my stomach.
People holding family and friends and taking shots there as if they were taking a picture with Mickey Mouse in Disneyland also makes me sick to my stomach. People actually smile on these pictures like it is an awesome moment being there!
What is wrong with these people??? Nothing. It is cultural, so I don't understand why are you so surprised with all that. Frankly... Americans like to brand everything that might be a financial sales success.
I have never seen people in Israel taking pictures in YAD VASHEM like if being in the holocaust museum is some sort of happy event.
To me being inside the Ground Zero (which I got tickets from free, otherwise I would not enter to it) made me sad, introspective and very depressed. walking around the whole area and seeing it DEAD when once was a pulsating financial area made me cry. i felt as bad as I felt the day I went to Yad Vashem.
Israelis would NEVER sell postcards of the Dolphinarium Club in Tel Aviv where hundreds of teenagers were murdered by terrorists. NEVERRRRR.
It is insulting for the memories of those who actually lost someone there.
That said, those are my thoughts and I am apologizing in advance if my opinion ofends anyone who reads your blog, or even you...but all Ground Zero issue is so wrong to my eyes...

Avery Gilbert said...

+ Q Perfume Blog a.k.a. Simone:

I am pretty much with you on this. It took me a couple of years before I could even bring myself to go down there.

I find the scale of the museum distasteful. But as you point out, any 9/11 commercialization is creepy. There's a great scene in Rescue Me where Denis Leary's NYFD firefighter character, who has lost his cousin and others, goes nuts on a guy hawking a table full of "9/11 cookies" and other crap.

Compare & contrast: Grant's Tomb up in Morningside Heights.