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Some families of September 11 victims are upset that officials have moved this year's anniversary events from the World Trade Center site to Zuccotti Park. Governor Spitzer and Mayor Bloomberg sent a letter to family members explaining that the services would be moved to the park (which is at Broadway and Liberty) because of the rebuilding work.
Tunnels are being constructed for the transit work. Besides rebuilding work, there are renewed searches for remains. But families are upset enough to threaten to boycott this year's events over the move. A letter stated, "For us, and many Americans around the nation, the World Trade Center site is sacred ground" and questioned whether the park would even hold the thousands of mourners.
The letter was sent from eleven family groups; it also said, "Is it so terrible to stop construction for 1/2 day so that the fathers, mothers, sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, husbands, wives, children, friends and fellow citizens can respectively gather to remember and honor their fallen loved one?" It's unclear if the ceremony was moved because there are safety issues at the construction site, but one victim's mother said, "I don't know why it can't be on what many consider is sacred ground. There may be a legitimate reason, I don't know because they've never bothered to sit down and talk to us about it."
This year, first responders will be reading the names of victims (in previous years, siblings, children, and spouses/significant others have read the names). The letter said, "These men and women helped guide New York City and the nation through one of our darkest hours, and we are honored that they will join our ceremony as we remember and honor those we lost."
Photograph of Ground Zero by p0psharlow on Flickr
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Who didn't see this coming?
You know why they moved it? I'll tell you why, It's because when a constructing beam hits one of their black asses,they know I'm going to protest.
FUCK YOU 9/11 families!!! Damn, it's not like nobody else has died. All this milking sympathy has run it's course.
No such thing as sacred ground.
seriously. can we let the construction frickin' start already? i AM sorry for their loss, but i'm also sick of working near a pit for the past 6 years and of the shrill hysterics every time anyone else tries to get a word in edgewise with this group of martyrs. i lost people, too, but christ, it's SIX YEARS LATER.
it baffles me why this group of people has been able to hijack this process.
sorry families but 9/11 is all but forgotten by the majority of people in American. the only people who invoke it's name are those with an agenda. No one really cares anymore, ask anyone if they care about the Oklahoma bombing and it's an afterthought.
Tourists and crazy people, please stop making ground zero a Mecca destination.
Grief has a shelf life, for God's sake. My dad died prematurely less than six years ago and I don't insist on having a public memorial for him at the site where he died every single year--for normal people, an occasional graveside visit and a toast at Christmas dinner suffice.
Those people need to get a life. They can boycott the ceremony if they want; frankly the other 2000 people won't give a damn if they do.
Is this protest the same core group of about 15 to 20 people?
#6 is an idiot though. People haven't forgotten. It's just that they went on living. The martyr group has nothing else to do. They made protesting their entire existence. I agree with #7.
you're an idiot, only people with an agenda won't let it be forgotten, now it's just a tourist site and for the holier than thou's to think they are special when they gaze into that hole.
again, tourists and assholes please stay away from church street, please stop with the crocodile tears.
big deal. boo hoo boo hoo.
I am a professional tour guide, so I know a lot about how tourists react to the site. With a handful of exceptions (there are no stupid locals?), they look at it with respect and ask thoughtful questions like, "When will reconstruction begin?" or more frequently, "When are you going to do something? Why is it still a hole in the gound? It's been six years?"
I take them to either Liberty Street or the Winter Garden. The latter has an exhibition on re-building -- amusingly stripped of all references to George Elmer Pataki, who appeared in text and video clips more than 30 times in the December 2006 version.
By chance, the friend of a friend is a 9/11 widow. She had nothing to bury but has never been active in "family" groups. She feels that her husband's legacy lives on in her heart and in their daughter and their grandchildren, not in Manhattan schist.
In short, most visitors, like most New Yorkers, want to move on. Of course, we must pay respect to all those who died; that's what the memorial park is about. But I see no disrespect in a memorial directly across the street from the site, now filled with cranes and bulldozers.
I see no problem with moving the ceremony, but I also see no problem with some of the families reacting. I mean, come on, I know I'm not saying anything everyone already knows, but this is what people do, freak when routines are changed.
There probably isn't a single spot in Manhattan where someone hasn't died and we can't shut the city done spot by spot every year to memorialize them all, but the families will come to accept this, too. Some sooner than others.
Exactly how fast do you people think rebuilding can happen anyway? Think of every tall building that goes up in this city. A developer doesn't wake up on Monday, have complete architectural drawings by Tuesday, and shovels in the ground on Wendesday. The first plans for the original WTC were made at least ten years before the towers were capped.
how fast? have you seen citifield or the new yankee stadium? WTC seven is already finished for quite some time.
It's going on six years, that's six years. that's a term and a half.
I am a 9/11 family member and I know and have worked with those who signed and sent this letter on other issues. I can understand that they woud like a little consoltation before receiving an email letter but - the site is now a construcion site - look at the accompanying photo - that's not a sacred enviroment.
Just so people know, however, the City and State is not listening to them either on the redevelopment and memorial at the site. Go online to "Imagine NY" - a report of onine and public forums in the memorial jury's final eight choices. The people asked that the memorial, like their own memorials, confront the attacks by using the icnonic images of them; the WTC facade, the Sphere, the crushed fire trucks, the flyers The flag raising by the firefighters. Nothing of that will be included in the memorial because "it would tell us what to think." There can be no history returned to the site "in order to preserve the integrity of the memorial." I'm not mkaing that up; those are the jury's words.
In the long run, the site as really been hijacked by a handful of clueless intellectuals, artists and useless political hacks. The firs responders are being asked to read the names this year; well, at the memorial, those 407 first responders who gave their lives 9/11 at that site cannot and will not even be recognized so Mayor Bloomberg can "show that everybody was equal."
The families got off track by devoting themselves to he bedrock; a big mistake. But, Pataki, Bloomberg have no excuse. They had an obligation to see to it that the history of 9/11 is respectfully and fatihfully conveyed. Neither one of them give a crap about that, so our history, American history, will disappear from that site.
I agree that nothing is sacred but, if you look at everything that they still have to deal with, including but not limited to:
Body parts being found in sewers, on top of buildings buried underI agree that nothing is sacred but, if you look at everything that they still have to deal with what has been done and continues in their loved ones names:
Body parts being found in sewers, on top of buildings buried under streets and in land fills…
A whitewash of an investigation into their murders…
The knowledge that if it weren't for their loved ones being murdered, all of the thousands of soldiers and civilians who have been and continue to be wrongfully murdered and maimed would still be living or living a less painful existence today…
The realization that our nation’s rights and freedoms have also been rescinded at the financial cost of all our children's children.
The fact that they and their children have to relive 9/11 every time they open a newspaper, turn on the television, go to the movies or book store, or pass by a store with pictures and memorabilia selling their loved ones death for profit.
Yes, they are asking for a proper memorial ceremony at ground zero but, when you consider all of the indignities and horrors that they continue to relive everyday, can you really blame them?
In reality, the 9/11 families have tried to lead the nation to expect better from our leaders, as well as, a safer and dignified nation; in light of our collectively dim future, isn’t that what we all should be asking for?
Lets let the families have their dignity and insist upon a new 9/11 investigation which quite possibly lead to a change in our nation’s and, quite frankly, the world’s policies, direction and future.
Yes, I am a 9/11 widow, and a mother, a sister, aunt, friend, citizen...the after effects of 9/11 continue to affect all of us. Can't you see the bigger picture?
I am astonished by the viciousness of so many of these postings. Do people truly have so little empathy?
Have people forgotten that the World Trade Center site is the only graveyard there is for the families of more than 1,100 victims who have never had identified remains? (Think of it: 1,100 people simply GONE.)
And no one has mentioned that Zuccotti Park is tiny -- on the 11th people will be crammed into that little space like sardines. It will not be a dignified ceremony -- it will be worse than the subway.
And why is it so important to build something on the site so quickly? Why not try to build something wonderful and thoughtful and meaningful, however long that may take? And the icons of that day -- the facade of the building -- the damaged rescue vehicles, the cross, the sphere...all those things should be at street level where everyone who passes can remember. If we do not remember, we will have another September 11th.
The World Trade Center site IS sacred ground for all of us -- it is forever hallowed to the memories of the 2,750 murdered there, to all those who survived, to all the deeds of valor and self-sacrifice performed on the 11th and in the weeks and months thereafter, sacred to the way we were all a little more thoughtful in the days after the 11th. We all need that sacred space -- those who say we do not need it, or who want it to be some office need it more than all the rest.
Like number 15, I know some of the people behind the letter, and they are genuinely working to the best of their ability to make our world safer and better. That they do this despite their pain is something we should honor.
I am blessed and lost no one on the 11th. But I believe with all my heart that those who were murdered that day should be remembered with love and reverence forever. I believe with all my heart that the people who love the dead of September 11th are uniquely qualified to remind the rest of us -- the lucky ones who can go home and hug our loved ones -- of what hatred can do.
Are we really too selfish to listen?