FOR WHOM THE BILL TOLLS
This piece regarding the latest round of plans for a memorial at Ground Zero sounds just like every other article I've read on the subject for the past few years: someone submitted plans for such-and-such a memorial; this & that idea ran over-budget; so-and-so architect submitted alternate plans; this & that group of mourning relatives clashed with that & this consortium of businessmen; and, as always, the names Pataki, Bloomberg, Libeskind and Silverstein splattered all over these stories.
Enough.
Build something. Build an office tower. Build a condo. Build a housing project. Build the world's largest K-Mart. Build a retractable dome stadium for the Jets, Yankees, N.Y. Liberty and the annual Cops vs. Fireman flag football game.
Build something!
Every group -- all of them indescribably self-interested -- invokes "the memory of those lost on September 11th," of the "need to respect the legacy of the fallen." Well, you know what? A gigantic hole in the ground is the insult to everyone's memory: the dead and the living. Build something.
Death is wrenching. Anyone who's ever lost someone precious knows about the mourning experience. It takes time, possesses its own rhythm, and has its distinctive quirks and indiosyncracies. All mourners deserve this time. New York lost something dear to it nearly five years ago. All New Yorkers did.
But wrenching though death is, life goes on, because it must. And there comes a point -- hard to pinpoint, but clear when it arrives -- when mourning moves from understandable to excessive, becoming morbid and perverse. And I'm here to stand up and say that five years is too long to worship a fallow hole in the ground. It's too long to cry over the symbolic final resting place of those 3000 souls. The best way to honor the memory of those lost, the best way to respect the lives of those still living is to Move On.
Build Something.
Enough.
Build something. Build an office tower. Build a condo. Build a housing project. Build the world's largest K-Mart. Build a retractable dome stadium for the Jets, Yankees, N.Y. Liberty and the annual Cops vs. Fireman flag football game.
Build something!
Every group -- all of them indescribably self-interested -- invokes "the memory of those lost on September 11th," of the "need to respect the legacy of the fallen." Well, you know what? A gigantic hole in the ground is the insult to everyone's memory: the dead and the living. Build something.
Death is wrenching. Anyone who's ever lost someone precious knows about the mourning experience. It takes time, possesses its own rhythm, and has its distinctive quirks and indiosyncracies. All mourners deserve this time. New York lost something dear to it nearly five years ago. All New Yorkers did.
But wrenching though death is, life goes on, because it must. And there comes a point -- hard to pinpoint, but clear when it arrives -- when mourning moves from understandable to excessive, becoming morbid and perverse. And I'm here to stand up and say that five years is too long to worship a fallow hole in the ground. It's too long to cry over the symbolic final resting place of those 3000 souls. The best way to honor the memory of those lost, the best way to respect the lives of those still living is to Move On.
Build Something.
posted by Mike at 8:21 AM
2 Comments:
I second the motion. But with so many parties involved, it invokes the cliche: "Too many cooks spoil the broth." There was less at stake for the proposed West Side Stadium and look how that ended.
"There was less at stake for the proposed West Side Stadium and look how that ended."
Ended dead on arrival. And good thing. In 99% of the scenarios, I don't want to see any public involvment in this type of thing. It always means you & I footing the bill for someone who needs no such footing.
But the Giant Hole in the Ground is the rare thing that rises to a civic need.
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