Made a kickstarter for our memorial

[FromOhio]

Please feel free to check it out! I've posted this on here a few years back, and it's near completion.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects...y-911-memorial

[Max K]

Please feel free to check it out! I've posted this on here a few years back, and it's near completion.

I remember your previous post about this (several years ago): I was impressed. It's not a big-budget memorial park, but at least it does what it's supposed to do: memorialize and honor the victims and heroes of 9/11. I hope to see it some day.

Compare that to the (shameful) "National September 11 Memorial & Museum" in Manhattan: For years, I wanted to see Ground Zero (I have never been to that part of the country). But no longer: I have lost all desire to see Ground Zero, or any part of the memorial or museum. Why? Because of an article I read, written by a 9/11 family member (in 2011), which describes how the National September 11 Memorial is all about political correctness.

BURKE: Political correctness gone mad at Ground Zero
We can have a Ground Zero Mosque, but not a memorial that actually memorializes 9/11

By Michael Burke - The Washington Times - Thursday, July 7, 2011
This Sept. 11, the 10th anniversary of the terrorist attacks upon America, New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg will dedicate the massive, $600 million National September 11 Memorial and Museum at the World Trade Center. What Americans have not been told is that this “memorial” will remake Ground Zero so that it does not acknowledge 9/11.

Instead of acting as a constant reminder of the attacks, a symbol for us and future generations of the evil that struck, the death and destruction it caused and the heroism and sacrifice in response, the memorial will wipe out all evidence and memory of the attacks.

Replacing all reminders of the attacks will be two immense “voids” with gigantic subterranean waterfalls designed to express exclusively, as per architect Michael Arad, the continuing “absence in our lives caused by these deaths.”

About 500 trees will be planted upon the site. They are, we are told by memorial officials, “traditional symbols of the rejuvenation of life.” They also will eradicate all trace and memory of what stood there for 30 years and its destruction on Sept. 11.

The cause of “these deaths,” how these people came to be absent - that is, 9/11 - has been deemed irrelevant and even contrary to your memorial “experience.”

The memorial is not about that; it’s about you.

Cities and towns across America have humbly requested a segment of the twisted steel of the WTC to feature in their own modest Sept. 11 memorials. The only memorial where one is not welcome is the “national” memorial at Ground Zero. Those iconic remnants, exactly because they are iconic, are considered far too gauche for the jury of intellectuals and artists who chose the design.

The National September 11 Memorial at the WTC will not include the iconic WTC “Sphere” - again, exactly because it is iconic. “The Sphere” stood in the center of the WTC plaza for 30 years as a symbol of world peace. On 9/11, though badly damaged (a piece of one of the planes tore through it) it survived the attacks in place and was embraced by many Americans as a symbol of the nation’s strength and resiliency.

That is why it cannot be returned.

It sits at Battery Park, about a half-mile from Ground Zero, where it was installed March 11, 2002, the six-month anniversary of the attacks, as a “temporary” memorial. Battery Park is undergoing its own renovations, and “The Sphere” will have to moved.

One 9/11 anniversary at Ground Zero, Mr. Arad told me that returning “The Sphere” would be “didactic.” That is, it would tell us what to think.

Somehow disposing of it is not telling us what to think.

This is like banishing the USS Arizona from the USS Arizona Memorial.

The 9/11 memorial will not identify Christine Lee Hanson, who died with her parents when United Airlines Flight 175 was slammed into the South Tower, as being “age 2.” This might convince you that the American victims were “innocent” and the foreign terrorists “guilty.”

That would be telling us what to think.

It will not include the initials FDNY, NYPD or PAPD. It will not include the words “firefighter” or “police officer.”

Recognizing the heroism and sacrifice of the firefighters and police officers would contrast those virtues with the barbarism and crime of the terrorists.

And though Mr. Bloomberg has said our values demand a Ground Zero Mosque, he will not allow the Rev. Mychal Judge, the FDNY chaplain who died while praying the Lord’s Prayer in the lobby of WTC 1, to be identified as “Fire Chaplain Father” Mychal Judge.

It is only traditional Judeo-Christian values that have no place at Ground Zero.

The photo of the three firefighters raising the flag at Ground Zero became as iconic of Sept. 11 as Joe Rosenthal’s famous photo of the Marines’ flag-raising at Iwo Jima was of World War II. So you know its fate.

This historic and symbolic act will not be depicted or recognized in any way. The design of the “national” Sept. 11 memorial will not, therefore, honor the values targeted and will deny them as deserving of our defense and sacrifice.

“How do we commemorate the countless accumulated memories of the attacks?” the 13-member memorial jury disingenuously asked in describing their task. Their answer? Eliminate all that we, the people, remember of the terrorist attacks.

This at the place where America was attacked.

One reason the Sept.11 attacks succeeded was the scourge of political correctness. It dictated that our national security officials could not track or investigate Middle Eastern men in America despite their “suspicious” behavior (such as learning how to fly jetliners without any interest in learning how to take off or land). Evidently, we have learned nothing. The National September 11 Memorial at the World Trade Center is not, nor is it intended to be, a genuine and lasting commemoration of Sept. 11. Rather, it is political correctness gone mad.

Michael Burke served on the family advisory committee for the memorial and the advisory committee on the museum center to the Lower Manhattan Development Corp. His brother, New York Fire Department Capt. William F. Burke Jr., Engine Company 21, gave his life on 9/11.

Copyright © 2015 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission.



Read more: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/...#ixzz3R1pbZTho
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[FromOhio]

I remember your previous post about this (several years ago): I was impressed. It's not a big-budget memorial park, but at least it does what it's supposed to do: memorialize and honor the victims and heroes of 9/11. I hope to see it some day.

Compare that to the (shameful) "National September 11 Memorial & Museum" in Manhattan: For years, I wanted to see Ground Zero (I have never been to that part of the country). But no longer: I have lost all desire to see Ground Zero, or any part of the memorial or museum. Why? Because of an article I read, written by a 9/11 family member (in 2011), which describes how the National September 11 Memorial is all about political correctness.

We have tried to keep politics out of it from the beginning. Like my grandpa said, Many people will believe different things, and no matter who did it, the innocent still need to be honored. There used to be a cross on top of the chapel when it was first constructed. After the first year, we decided to remove it because not everyone who died believed in Christianity. I would say that was our only ''politically-correct'' move with the project. If you ever find yourself in Pennsylvania, check out the flight 93 crash site in Shanksville. That memorial is beautiful and probably not as politically inclined.

[Max K]

We have tried to keep politics out of it from the beginning. Like my grandpa said, Many people will believe different things, and no matter who did it, the innocent still need to be honored. There used to be a cross on top of the chapel when it was first constructed. After the first year, we decided to remove it because not everyone who died believed in Christianity. I would say that was our only ''politically-correct'' move with the project. If you ever find yourself in Pennsylvania, check out the flight 93 crash site in Shanksville. That memorial is beautiful and probably not as politically inclined.

I would like it better if it had not been designed as the "Crescent of Embrace" by Paul Murdoch:



I don't think the 40 memorial groves are planted yet, and even when they are, the Mecca-oriented (yes) red crescent will only be visible from the air, and only in the fall I think. Also, some trees have been added, to disguise the crescent shape (make it more of a circle), and even the name was changed, to "Circle of Embrace", for the same reason. Still, nothing with the slightest Islamic symbolism should have been allowed. There was plenty of outrage, and there were all sorts of hearings, but nothing was changed (except for the added disguise I mentioned). A book was written about all this, called "Crescent of Betrayal".

Then, there is the "Tower of Voices", which is a part of the memorial that has not yet been built, which features a tower, with a crescent on top, and dangling below, like fish, 40 wind chimes, representing the 40 passengers:



So unfortunately, I don't like that memorial, either. Based on photos I've seen, I prefer your memorial park.

[Inactive]

Compare that to the (shameful) "National September 11 Memorial & Museum" in Manhattan: For years, I wanted to see Ground Zero (I have never been to that part of the country).

The whole WTC memorial thing has been little more than a political money grabbing fiasco all these years, I last heard they wanted to charge, or were charging a pretty high admission charge just to get in.
I see the whole thing becoming one huge expensive commercial business that once people have seen it a time or two, admissions and interest will dwindle to the point where admission fees, donations etc don't even begin to cover the millions of dollars in annual costs.

BURKE: Political correctness gone mad at Ground Zero
We can have a Ground Zero Mosque, but ...

Burke is incorrect, there is no "ground zero mosque," the so called "mosque" had been conducted as a prayer space in a part of the larger 1860s era commercial building. The site had formerly been a Burlington Coat Factory store, and a Con Ed electrical substation before that.
The building is approximately 2-1/2 blocks, 1/10th of a mile, or a two minute walk away from the closest corner of the WTC site and is not visible from that location.

The New York Times profiled two mosques that have been in existence for years not far from the WTC site. Masjid Manhattan, founded in 1970, is just four blocks away from the World Trade Center site, on Warren Street, and Masjid al-Farah, which used to be on Mercer Street, is 12 blocks away on West Broadway. Prayer services have actually been held at the 45 Park Place location since the latter part of 2009.

At issue with this building is, there is no "allow" involved, the building is privately owned, the owner of the building has the legal right to sell the real estate to anyone who has the money to purchase it. Once the property was listed for public sale with a realtor they cannot legally say: "only white Christian-Americans will be allowed to buy this building."

If objectors did not want this building to be turned into a "mosque/cultural center" or whatever the hell the developer wanted to make it into, they had the option to raise the funds to buy the building when it was for sale for the asking price, or offer more money to the seller for it to buy it themselves, they did not do that, so the building was sold to someone who did have the money to buy it. Tough break but that's how it goes in a volatile real estate market involving buildings worth tens of millions of dollars sitting on prime land.

Legally speaking- zoning restrictions, occupancy limits, fire regulations, or buildings dept restrictions that might apply to any building used for public gatherings are the only thing that can block the legal real estate sale and conversion.
I am unaware of any zoning restrictions that would not allow this use there, occupancy and fire regulations depend on the size of the building, number of exits, floor load capacity etc.