About 9-11 Memorial On Sept. 11, 2011, President Barack Obama and the victims' families, together with thousands on site and millions watching around the world, will gather in Memorial Plaza to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the attacks on the World Trade Center. There they will consecrate the memorial to the fallen - a structure that honors the dead, inspires hope in the living, and stands as a symbol of both immense loss and courage. Some of the world's most stunning new skyscrapers are rising at ground zero today. They represent boundless optimism for the site's future. But the memorial - which seeks to preserve the solemnity of the site's tragic past - stands in stark contrast to its towering neighbors. Its design, chosen from among more than 5,000 possibilities, is simple in concept: two enormous square holes, voids in the exact footprints of the previous towers, into which flow the world's largest fountains. A brass railing around each will be carved with the names of the victims of both the 1993 and 2001 terror attacks. A forest of 400 trees native to the attack sites in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania will offer visitors shade and peace and the solace of nature. It will be beautiful, devastating, inspiring. But it won't be easy to build. Those fountains will pour down 40,000 gallons of water a minute, not a drop of which can threaten the Path trains or the museum beneath the memorial. Those trees, transplanted into acres of urban concrete, have to flourish as if in Eden, symbols of the stubborn persistence of life. Not one of them can die, since once they are in they can't be replaced. Can the engineers and builders solve every problem and test every solution by the time the memorial opens to public view? And if it works on a sheer physical level, will the structure work symbolically? Have the designers of the memorial answered the emotional needs of the victims' families and of the greater public? Is that even possible? There was a moment after the attacks of 9/11 when our hearts were full of sorrow and of pride - sorrow for the people and sense of security we had lost that Tuesday morning, but pride in the people, city and country that had responded to terror with courage, generosity and strength. That's the moment, the intensity of feeling, that Memorial Plaza has been designed to capture. Read more on Rebuilding Ground Zero in our Ground Zero blog » |
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