Here we are, going on six years since the 9/11 attacks on America, and two of the crash sites are mired in controversy. It took years to reach agreement on a memorial at the World Trade Center site in New York, and every time new remains are found, new questions are raised..Near Schwenksville in Pennsylvania's Somerset County, where United Flight 93 crashed after a battle between the hijackers and the passengers, a temporary memorial was established. Thousands of visitors since 9/11 have left items which have become part of a larger display. Chaotic, unplanned, yes, but also reflecting a truer measure of how many Americans choose to deal with their grief and to honor the fallen heroes.
In The New Republic, Jonathan Last describes the lengthy "sausage-making" process that produced the abstract "Crescent of Embrace" design for the "official" memorial. After many people, including me, found it objectionable because of its similarity to the Islamic symbol, it was heavily modified, and is now truly an empty, bland proposal. As he writes:
It won't have any of the sentimentality of left-behind crosses or rosaries, motorcycle jackets or matchbox cars. Neither will it have any elements of the heroic or the classical--no obelisks or domes or statuary. Instead it will, as the NPS Flight 93 Memorial newsletter soothingly explains, offer the visitor "space for reflection, learning, social interaction, and healing." Not to mention wind chimes. And a spacious visitors' center, too.Very sad ... but does it have to be this way?
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