Suitably Flip

9/11 Memorial - 1,645 Days Later

From Gotham Gazette:

Work on 9/11 Memorial to Begin

Construction on the World Trade Center memorial and museum is set to start this morning as workers will begin removing debris and taking other steps to prepare the site. No ceremony is scheduled to mark the start ...

Governor Pataki told The New York Times:

"No one wanted to see the actual construction delayed to build in a ceremony, because it is more than a symbolic day ... It's a day when the actual construction of the memorial itself will begin. ... We're not focused on fanfare ... we are focused on moving forward the mandate given to us by the city and the nation."

Well, yes, there's that.  But there's also the fact that New Yorkers and everyone else have grown pretty accustomed to the constant jockeying and rejiggering at the hands of city and state political factions, overlapping constituencies like the Port Authority, the NYPD, victims' families, developers, lease holders, insurance companies, design committees, architects, etc.  There have been so many false starts and retracements at Ground Zero that few people would have been likely to jump on board with any kind of ribbon cutting or ceremonial to-do, without seeing progress first hand.

[Pataki] said there would be a public ceremony "at the appropriate time," within a few weeks, when progress is more visible.

That seems somewhat more promising.  Count me in, but I suspect it'll still be a hard sell to draw much of an audience from a city now understandably jaded as to the developmental prospects of the 9/11 memorial.

Comments

9/11 Memorial - 1,645 Days Later

From Gotham Gazette:

Work on 9/11 Memorial to Begin

Construction on the World Trade Center memorial and museum is set to start this morning as workers will begin removing debris and taking other steps to prepare the site. No ceremony is scheduled to mark the start ...

Governor Pataki told The New York Times:

"No one wanted to see the actual construction delayed to build in a ceremony, because it is more than a symbolic day ... It's a day when the actual construction of the memorial itself will begin. ... We're not focused on fanfare ... we are focused on moving forward the mandate given to us by the city and the nation."

Well, yes, there's that.  But there's also the fact that New Yorkers and everyone else have grown pretty accustomed to the constant jockeying and rejiggering at the hands of city and state political factions, overlapping constituencies like the Port Authority, the NYPD, victims' families, developers, lease holders, insurance companies, design committees, architects, etc.  There have been so many false starts and retracements at Ground Zero that few people would have been likely to jump on board with any kind of ribbon cutting or ceremonial to-do, without seeing progress first hand.

[Pataki] said there would be a public ceremony "at the appropriate time," within a few weeks, when progress is more visible.

That seems somewhat more promising.  Count me in, but I suspect it'll still be a hard sell to draw much of an audience from a city now understandably jaded as to the developmental prospects of the 9/11 memorial.