Agreement made in LI 9/11 memorial

LI12 News

(07/17/03) EAST MEADOW - A dispute that slowed construction of a Nassau County September 11th memorial in Eisenhower Park has been settled. At issue was how the rescue workers and civilians who died should be memorialized.

Families of police, firefighters and other rescue workers wanted their loved ones memorialized in a separate wall, giving them special recognition. But others say the 250 Nassau County residents who perished on September 11th should all be remembered equally, with no distinction.

In a compromise, all the names of those who perished will be listed in alphabetical order, but those who were police, firefighters and rescue workers will have their title and shields on the wall.

WTC Contest Draws Record Entries
By Katia Hetter
STAFF WRITER

July 18, 2003


The World Trade Center memorial competition attracted 5,200 submissions from 62 nations and every state except Alaska, making it the largest design competition in history, officials said yesterday.

The memorial, to be built on 4.7 acres on the 16-acre site, will honor victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and the 1993 trade center bombing.

"I am truly moved by the tremendous level of interest," said Anita Contini, Lower Manhattan Development Corp.'s vice president and director of cultural and memorial programs. "Simply by participating, each competitor honors and helps memorialize all those who died on Sept. 11, 2001, and Feb. 26, 1993."

Most of the submissions will be seen only by the 13-member memorial panel and some rebuilding officials. The five finalists' names and designs will be made public, and they will be paid a small fee to further develop their designs, officials have said. The LMDC expects the jury to name a winner in October. The jurors, who include Vietnam Veterans Memorial designer Maya Lin, will choose the finalists without knowing who created them.

The Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington held the record, drawing 1,421 entries in 1981.

Both Gov. George Pataki and Mayor Michael Bloomberg agreed that the memorial jury's decision would be final, but each man also has influence through a representative on the jury: former Pataki communications director Michael McKeon and Bloomberg deputy mayor Patricia Harris.

That rankles a group of firefighters lobbying Pataki to require that the memorial list the names of the fallen rescue workers together and include their companies, ranks and badge numbers.

Retired Fire Department Lt. John Finucane, who formed Advocates for a 9-11 Fallen Heroes Memorial, said several memorial designers told him they submitted plans "to reflect what we're asking for."

Applicants had to mail their designs to a warehouse where they were checked for anthrax, chemical agents and explosives before being shipped to a second, undisclosed location where the jury will review them.

For more information on the memorial competition, go to www.wtcsitememorial.org.
Copyright © 2003, Newsday, Inc.
 

THE CHARLOTTE OBSERVER                               Apr. 30, 2003

9/11 heroes deserve better
Memorial guidelines treat firefighters same as other terror victims
KATHLEEN PARKER
Tribune Media Services

And they're off! As the race officially began Monday for artists to register and submit designs for the World Trade Center Memorial, a fiery fax campaign was under way to protest guidelines that prohibit designs from distinguishing between heroes and victims.

The controversial guideline, listed among several on the memorial design Web site (www.renewnyc.com), calls for recognition of victims that will "honor the loss of life equally and the contributions of all without establishing any hierarchies."

In other words, no mention of rank or affiliation, just the names. Firefighters who stormed into burning buildings are to be treated the same as the people they were trying to save.

Once again, our American goal of equality seems to have been distorted beyond what is reasonable, fair or even accurate. Egalitarianism by totalitarian writ.

Pardon the blunt instrument, but being a victim is not necessarily heroic, whereas placing one's life at risk to help others surely is.

We seem to have a problem with that distinction. We don't like singling out individuals for special treatment or recognition. Thus, either everyone who died at the World Trade Center on Sept. 11 is a hero or no one is. Based on the guidelines, apparently we are to believe the latter.

But we know better. We watched. We saw events as they occurred in real time, and no amount of massaging the facts will change what we know. But what about future generations who visit the memorial site? Wouldn't they -- as well as we -- be curious to know which of the named were sitting at their desks sipping coffee when the planes hit and which were racing into the buildings to save lives?

To leave off the identities of these fallen seems not just a weird stab at "equal treatment," but borders on deception by omission. It seems and feels untrue.

Some firefighters and their families are hurt by the memorial board's refusal to budge. A few weeks ago, the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation vetoed a request by New York City firefighters to have a separate recognition of rescue workers.

Meanwhile, Janet Roy of Pompano Beach, Fla., whose firefighter brother died on 9/11, has joined her other brother in a fax alert campaign to enlist support for including titles and affiliations.

As for listing her brother as simply William F. Burke Jr. -- or as FDNY Capt. William F. Burke Jr., Engine 21 -- Roy asks: "Which gives the accurate picture of what Billy was that day?"

"Visitors to the site and future generations with no memory of the event will learn nothing of who Billy Burke was, and how and why he died. A memorial that does not recognize or honor how and why Billy died does not honor him. Rather it demeans the sacrifice he chose and the honor he served."

As of Monday, Roy's campaign had sent faxes to every firehouse and many police precincts in New York City. She hopes the memorial board will decide to list victims' names under the company, government agency, union or other organization they worked for.

"My belief is if you list them by company, visitors will gain a greater understanding of the tragedy. Who couldn't help but be moved when they see 650 names under Cantor Fitzgerald?" she said.

Moreover, while we may all be the same in the beginning and in the end, there's a vast in-between where some escape the crab pot and perform remarkably, grandly, even nobly. Those who died that day weren't all equal in their "roles," for lack of a better word. Some were hustling, bustling, gut-busting human machines forging against horror and terror into the maw of their own near-certain deaths.

What could be wrong with identifying them as such? We should be erecting and naming buildings after them, and yet we hesitate even to accurately assign their titles.

Next we'll be dropping first names lest we give away gender and invite all the "unfair" inferences that would follow.

The memorial board may have been motivated by the best of intentions, but the rescuers from Sept. 11 deserve, at the very least, the honor of their titles in memorial repose. It seems a small token in exchange for their extraordinary lives.

Kathleen Parker                                                                        to top

                   Maggie Gallagher Wrote March 21, 2003                           NY POST

What would the victims of 9/11 want?

More than 200,000 young Americans are now poised to risk their lives to defend this nation and to liberate the people of Iraq. With the mystery of human evil comes the moment of heroism, the one calling forth the other like a candle shining in the darkness.

Surely honoring that flame, that willingness to lay down one's life for others, is the least that the rest of us can do. But here in New York, I read with unfathomable sadness that the Lower Manhattan Development Corp., in charge of designing the parameters of a memorial to the victims of 9/11, has decided not to honor the policemen and firemen who gave their lives rushing to help the victims of the attack.

How can this be? What kind of twisted world do we live in, you ask? I do not know how to say this. But it appears to be the result of a campaign by spokesmen for families of the other victims of 9/11.

Stephen J. Cassidy, president of the Uniformed Firefighters Association, told the media there should be "some designation for those people who died willingly, who risked their lives to save others." But several groups representing victims' families feel otherwise: Thomas Johnson lost a son, a financial analyst for Keefe, Bruyette and Woods, in the attack on the twin towers. He told the media he feels "very strongly that what is called for is one memorial."

"We believe each individual who lost their life on that tragic day should be treated with honor and extraordinary respect," agrees Edie Lutnick, executive director of the Cantor Fitzgerald Relief Fund.

And so they should. It was an extraordinary moment in American history and the outpouring of empathy and assistance by their fellow Americans is a tribute to our desire to share and if possible, ease their families' grief.

But, as gently as possible, here is my question: In what sense does honoring the sacrifice of our uniformed rescue workers dishonor your dead? If the beloved dead can see the living, do you imagine they would be proud of this portion of your efforts? If in those last terrible moments the doomed had any hope, it was because they believed they had not been abandoned. And they were not abandoned. Help was on the way and died rushing to save your family and friends. What kind of people do you think your lost loved ones were? Why would they not want to honor those who marched into a raging death trap in order to try to save them?

And then, of course, apart from the dead there are the living: thousands of survivors, at least some of whom have stories to tell today because men who are now dead came to their aid.

What do you say to those survivors: I am sorry, we do not feel like honoring your rescuers today?

I realize grief lasts long and disorders thoughts and emotions. But still I cannot think so badly of human nature as to believe that the official victim spokesmen truly speak for all families of victims.

The decision of the Lower Manhattan Development Corp. is not yet final. Board members will vote next month on the guidelines, including the decision not to set aside even a small portion of sacred space for police, fire and rescue workers who died rushing into, not out of, the burning towers.

If you lost a loved one in 9/11 and want to honor those who died trying to save him or her, write to me. If you or a loved one was rescued on 9/11 by uniformed rescue workers, write to me. We need to broaden the voices in this debate before a terrible, short-sighted, grief-stricken ingratitude is memorialized forever in lower Manhattan.             to top

Looking into The Pit -finding no greater love
 Michael Daly          NY Daily News  April 20, 2003

One cross able to stir those of all faiths this Easter weekend is the one of rusted steel that stands at the edge of the vast emptiness that was once the World Trade Center.
The sight of any cross serves to remind Christians of words Jesus is supposed to have spoken in the hours before his arrest:

"Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends."

The particular cross at Ground Zero is the joining of a column and crossbeams pulled from the wreckage. It stands just beyond a sign affixed to the steel fence that now rings the 16-acre Pit.

"The people killed here were not soldiers at war," the sign reads. "They were innocent civilians who went to work and never returned. They were hundreds of rescuers who died so thousands might live."

Many of those rescuers were Christians, but some were as Jewish as Jesus, others were agnostics, a few were avowed atheists and at least one was a Buddhist. Their common faith was in that greater love, in their willingness to lay down their lives for others.

So if the rusted steel cross standing over the Pit did not fill an Eastertime visitor's heart with Jesus, there was also Moira and Kathy and Orio and John.

This was not the John whose biblical book reported in 15:13 Jesus' words of greater love. This was Firefighter John Tipping, whose remains were difficult to identify because his turnout coat also held the remains of a civilian he had covered with his own body as the south tower came down.

Moira was was Police Officer Moira Smith, who had been photographed leading an executive from danger. She then returned to the south tower to help others.

Ultimate sacrifice

Kathy was Port Authority Police Capt. Kathy Mazza. Her body was found along with those of five fellow Port Authority cops clustered around the remains of a woman they had been trying to rescue.

Orio was Chief Orio Palmer, who reached the 78th floor of the south tower along with Fire Marshal Ronnie Bucca and Lt. Joseph Leavey and members of Ladder 15. Palmer's voice on the radio had been as calm as if he were fighting a kitchen fire.

Yesterday morning, there was only empty blue sky where Palmer and his comrades had climbed. Your gaze went back to the cross, and what caught your attention was the flange of steel at the top twisted by the force of the collapse that had come despite all the prayers for those still inside. You then looked to the right along the fence, to six adjoining panels.

"The Heroes of September 11, 2001," read the words across the top.

You looked for Moira Smith and saw she was one of 13 Smiths listed. You saw that two, Kevin Smith and Leon Smith, were firefighters. The 10 others were apparently civilians and you realized that the Port Authority had decided to list alphabetically as heroes everyone who died that day.

You remembered that the Lower Manhattan Development Corp. had voted by unanimous "ayes" on April 9 that the permanent memorial would also accord no special recognition to rescue workers. The corporation's stated intent was to "honor loss of life equally without establishing any hierarchy."

Heroic works

"Hearing none opposed, the resolution is passed," Lower Manhattan Development Corp. Chairman John Whitehead said.

Those whose passionate opposition was not heard included the families of numerous rescue workers. These families do not suggest that their loved ones were more precious or that the families of the civilian victims feel the loss any less keenly.

And nobody doubts that many civilians were uncommonly brave that day in ways that will never be known. These courageous souls would rightly be honored in a memorial to the unknown heroes.

But no civilian victim rushed from perfect safety into the most mortal danger as hundreds of rescue workers did. No civilian raced on foot through the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel or dashed from the Medical Division already injured from an earlier blaze, or hopped a fire rig when he was due to go off duty and meet his wife four blocks away for their anniversary.

To list all the names together as they are on the six panels now affixed to the fence is to overwhelm the beholder with the sheer number of lives lost that September morning. The Pit becomes a huge crime scene and the rusted steel cross just evidence from a mass murder.

Only if you already know the names to look for do you begin to appreciate just how many rescuers did indeed die "so thousands might live." Name by name, the Pit becomes a place of what those of all faiths know to be the greater love. The cross there becomes something to stir everyone, if for no other reason than it is comprised of steel made sacred by sacrifice.

You see the name Michael F. Lynch and you are reminded that he perished in the south tower carrying Ralph Waldo Emerson's definition of success in his wallet. This is Scripture even for atheists, just the words to go on a memorial for the rescuers that would teach everyone those names.

"To know even one life has breathed easier because you lived. ..."

Originally published on April 20, 2003                                                                     to top