Capt. Billy Burke

The 9/11 memorial we are currently building at the WTC site will cost a minimum of a billion dollars. Years ago the LMDC reported its monthly maintenance of costing up to $50 million. That’s over a half a billion dollars a year. What will New York and America get for these grand sums?

A memorial that will remake the WTC site so that it does not acknowledge the attacks. As per the architect and the handful of elite intellectuals that dictated the design concept, there can be no history of 9/11 restored to the site “in order to preserve the integrity of the memorial.”

The memorial is not “to” 9/11; it is not “to” the victims. As per Michael Arad, the architect, it is “to the absence in our lives caused by these deaths.”

It is not to my brother, Capt Billy Burke and what he did that day and how and why he died; it is to me.

I don’t want a billion dollar, eight acre memorial to me.

Nothing of what the people embraced as commemorating 9/11 will be restored to the site; not the facade remnants, not the Koenig Sphere, not the crushed fire trucks, not the flyers, not the raising of our flag by the three firefighters.

The names will be listed with as little reference to 9/11 as they can get away with.

In public and online forums this memorial was rejected by nearly two to one (see www.imagineny.org). The people said the “memorial and/or jury process has failed.”

They called for a memorial and site that recognized and honored the history of 9/11. Exactly opposie of what we are getting.

Violating their own requirements to listen and apply the wishes of the people, the LMDC, the jury, the PA, Mayor Bloomberg and then Gov. Pataki simply ignored the findings and went ahead with the memorial they wanted.

It cannot be built and will add exorbitant costs to rebuilding.

There is a better way.

Each anniversary the families visit two small empty voids, in a reflecting pool. We leave flowers and notes and momentoes. It works. What all are looking for we find there. And it is not bedrock; that’s gone. We are standing on gravel imported from who knows where in the middle of a perpetual construction site, surrounded by mud puddles, huge construction vehicles and so on.

It’s a place at this place.

Here’s what we do: on the plaza, where the attacks occured, we build a similar, permanent memorial, in stone. We surround it with a pleasant garden, perhaps a soothing waterfall (not, as Arad’s have been described by builder Frank Sciame, “headache producing” and “impossible to stand near for any length of time”).

We restore to the plaza a recognizable segmant of the facade remnants; the Koenig Sphere and in a plaza level museum, designed to attract visitors, not hidden underground as the present design calls for (thus contributing nothing to the community) the crushed fire trucks and the flyers and the other artifacts of 9/11.
We identify the victims as the flyers did; by sex, race, floor, company, tower, approx. age, and by fire dept, police dept, rank and company.

And that’s about it.

This preserves Arad’s concept of “absence” while preserving our duty to preserve and convey the history of 9/11 at this place.

This allows rebuilding on the site at a can do price. Turn bedrock over for parking, infrastructure, whatever. A shopping mall. Whatever works. Rebuild two towers, rectangular, like who know what. That worked better and compliments the spires of the Empire State Bldng and Chryslar bldng better than another spire. You might even rebuild a tower from the remnants of WTC 1 or 2; the facade remnants restored could be inside that lobby; the bldng would rise from that. Rise again, as it were. A little better and more genuine message than Arad’s “voids” or immense drains currently being used to express 9/11.

Contrary to the message that the intellectual elites want to send at the WTC site, America does not stink. We are not losers. Death is not final; the meaning of 9/11 is not expressed by “ever emptying voids.”

By the courage, compassion, humility, strength, sacrifice and heroism displayed 9/11, from those on the planes and in the towers and of the rescue workers, to all Americans and New Yorkers, 9/11 was ultimately a day of triumph. Goodness and decency and order and light triumphed over the evil and cruelty and barbarism and darkness the terrorists brought.

The site can and should reflect that.
 
We can make that happen. It is our duty to do so. We owe it the innocents who perished 9/11; we owe it to future generations. Please join me in making it happen. Leave a name and contact info. We get a movement happening, one of the people, we can force the politicians to listen. We can make this happen.

Thank you,

Michael Burke

Nineteen men, members of the fundamentalist Christian group “The Way” decked out with confederate flags wrapped around their heads, hijacked four jetliners by murdering the pilots and then crashing the planes into occupied skyscrapers, murdering thousands more. “Christ is great!” they reportedly yelled as they rushed the cabins. “Long live Dixie!”

The group’s leader, Brother Ewell Lee Stuart released a video tape justifying the attack. Wearing a pointed white hood and robe marked by a cross, he said the actions were demanded by God. “It is the duty of true Christians everywhere to kill non-believers wherever they find them,” he said.

President Obama promised the nation and the world America would not be bowed. “These fundamentalist Christians are enemies of freedom,” an angry president exclaimed. “They have declared a War of Terror upon the civilized world. You are either for us or against us.” The New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times all praised the president’s decisive stance, as did scores of bloggers such as the Huffington Post.

The President railed against the “Christian Republic of the Real Alabama” a separatist nation that exists where Mexico used to be.

“Imagine a world where homosexuality and abortion is outlawed. Where the vote of the people on matters such as gay marriage stands. Where all its citizens must adhere to the government dictated version of Christian fundamentalism under the proscription of death. No one is permitted to profess their own deeply felt spirituality as dictated by the convenience of their conscience. Each Sunday everyone must go to church and profess, publicly, “Praise Jesus!” In the morning. At times, before noon. And pray. At times, on their knees. Exceptions to church attendance are only made for a son’s football game or if the fishing is really, really good. Or the opening day of hunting season.

They hunt. Living, innocent animals. With guns. For fun.

Only SUVs or pick up trucks are allowed. Full size. All automobiles engines are being converted so they burn leaded fuel only. All trucks must bear, prominently, a confederate flag; their national symbol. Pick ups should feature a dog in the back. Not a “poogle” or a “boggle” or some other weird mix of ‘annoying, yapping breeds’ as they call them. ‘A dog,’ they insist.

Citizens are required to watch NASCAR. All movies must include at least one explosion. No subtitles allowed. ‘If I want to read,’ Stuart has said, ‘I’ll subscribe to Reader’s Digest.’”

The President paused. “Going Green,” he said solemnly, “is not allowed. All grocery bags must be plastic.”

“Nuke ‘em,” the Huffington post wept.

Ewell Lee Stuart, a former state senator was actually at one time considered a rising star of national politics. Then a tape of his church’s minister and personal mentor (the Rev. Bobby Lee Earl) railing against the “sins of America” – abortion, homosexuality, promiscuity, among others (such as “sex education”) surfaced. “Goddam America!” he railed in conclusion.

In response Stuart was mocked and ridiculed. He became constant fodder for late night comedians. Editorial pages across the nation raged against his “close association with intolerance” and demanded his resignation. “Contrary to the blind faith of the thousands of his ardent followers,” the New York Times roared, ”Mr. Stuart is not the uniter as advertised (as the Times has frequently warned). His gross insensitivity disqualifies him from public office.” His national appeal in response for understanding where Bobby Earl coming from, though thought by some as “eloquent” was equally mocked. “Rev. Earl is the victim?” the Times exclaimed, “Stuart has flipped.”

Fodder for late night comedians and a frequent target of film doctumatarians (“Equivicate This!” by Michael Moore) Stuart disappeared from sight. He reappeared several years later when, at a Civil War reenactment, he led the Confederate side in Pickett’s charge, this time armed with AK-47s and armored gear. After routing the Union forces, Stuart and his forces invaded the country formely known as Mexico and within a week and a half, suspending operations one Saturday afternoon for the Alabama-Florida game, had taken control of the nation. They dealt with the drug dealers by constructing enormous catapults and flinging them into the ocean. When lawyers for human rights agencies complained, they flung them into the ocean. Their main source of income is from their “Spring Break” industry which they offer year round.  

“Make no mistake,” the President said, “We are at war. A war which this nation must win.”

Afterwards Presidental aides issued a statement amending the President’s words; “The President, when he said ‘we must win’ did not wish to imply that the other side should lose. He rejects as false the choice between “winning” and “losing” in a war, especially one to the death. He thinks the world is better off if the “winning” and “losing” is spread around evenly.”

Wall Street, the Great Satan, makes the President’s blood rise. One can see it when in interviews the subject is raised; the chin rises; the eyebrows arch; the voice deepens and the words flow down the nose with an assured, self congratulatory air. The image of the gluttonous pinstriped banker feeding on the labors of downtrodden fits every stereotype implanted in his brain by years of advanced, liberal education. It inspires him. Even if the robber barons are feeding from a trough provided by his stimulus plan.

Fundamentalist Islamic terrorists, however, not so much. After all, they are non-Western, dark skinned, non English speaking, non-Judeo-Christian, untechnologically advanced victims of Western post colonialism. And who did they attack? The 78 degree room heating, SUV driving, carbon spewing, gun clinging, Rush Limbaugh listening, bonus distributing, terrorist recognizing, chicken roosting America. Well, actually they haven’t struck the terrorist recognizing America, at least not any of our civilian interests anywhere in the world, since 9/11. In the nineties, back in the twentieth century, before we recognized Islamic terrorists had declared war on us and were treating those who did attack us as common criminals, that is “bringing them to justice” as Obama put it, by arresting and trying and convicting them with full constitutional rights as Obama thinks – knows we should – that America they attacked; over and over and over. Here in America; around the world; until the big one, 9/11.

That’s the policy Obama approves of; that’s the one he wants to go back to. The pre-9/11 policy. And then some. You see, keeping Americans alive is not his priority; that is not such a big deal. I mean, 9/11 was sad and all that; but no reason, for say, cancelling the wife’s fund raising excursion to the West Coast in the middle of the campaign. Rather than visiting with you, the presidential candidate, on the anniversary to the site where an office complex the size of a small city was destroyed and 2,749 Americans and their guests were brutally murdered.

No; saying the right things. That’s what matters. Coddling those who hate us. “Sucking up,” one might say, to those who burn our flag and then stop on the ashes. Whose people drag the bodies of our dead soldiers through the streets. Whose leaders call for the absolute destruction of our allies. Go on TV and speak to the “Islamic Republic of Iran.” That sort of thing (Islamic republic? How does that work? Imagine if some nation declared itself the “Christian Republic of So and So” and outlawed homosexuals, abortion and all other religions and beliefs? How few nanoseconds would it be before the Liberal establishment demanded we divest from them?).

While our post 9/11 policy has kept Americans from getting killed, it is insensitive to our enemies. It has kind of insulted the fundamentalist Islamic terrorists by calling them “fundamental Islamic terrorists” (well, actually it hasn’t; the “9/11 Five” currently being denied their fundamental human rights in Guantanamo Bay boast of being terrorists. It offends, however, the sensibilities of Western elitists to call the terrorists “terrorists”). It also offends our European intellectual allies who hate us by implying that we were not guilty and deserving of the attacks. It breeds “anti-American sentiment” by implying that America will not and should not stand for being attacked; that it is not only, how shall we put it, improper or poor politics to kill Americans but morally wrong.

Imply that and the intellectuals exchange knowing, superior looks; leave the room and they burst into laughter.

So, when Obama said “change” that’s what he meant; let’s change from what has worked to what does not. From what has kept Americans from getting killed to going back to what did.

Because then the world will like us more. Not much to ask for.

The facts don’t bear him out,” President Obama said of former VP Dick Cheney’s contention that the Bush/Cheney post 9/11 anti-terrorism policy as made us safer. Really? Let’s get crazy and actually subject something Obama has said to scrutiny according to the facts, something he obviously does not feel the need to do. Let’s for once, see if the facts bear him out.

On Feb. 26, 1993, jihad terrorists bombed the World Trade Center in New York City, killing six (including a pregnant woman) and injuring thousands. On June 25, 1996 in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia a truck bomb exploded outside the Khobar Towers military complex killing 19 American servicemen. On Aug. 7, 1998 in Nairobi, Kenya and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, two U.S. embassies were bombed killing 224. On Oct. 12, 2000 the USS Cole in the Persian Gulf was attacked killing 17 American sailors.

Despite these attacks America did not recognize that Islamic terrorists had declared war on us. We continued to treat them as common criminals. We did not use terms like “War on Terror” or “enemy combatants.” No one knew the term “jihad” – all post 9/11 terms Obama’s double think has conveniently banned. We targeted them only as fugitive criminals and continued “bringing them to justice” as Obama has put it, by arresting and trying and convicting them with full constitutional rights over and over and over as Obama thinks – knows we should do now. Shockingly, jihadist terrorists did not appreciate that. They returned to attack us until America, in its ignorance and haughtiness suffered 9/11.

That’s the policy Obama approves of; that’s the one he wants to go back to. The pre-9/11 policy.

That is the change Obama meant: let’s change from what has worked to what does not. From what has kept Americans from getting killed to going back to what did.

“I think he (Cheney) is drawing the wrong lessons from history,” Obama said. Uh-uh. Based on the facts, Obama is oblivious to history.

I reject as false, as the President might say, his choice between the Constitution and fighting the war on Islamic terrorists; of establishing as allies Arab states and administering justice without further delay upon the enemies of America, as is our duty. America is fully capable, as he might also say, of that “multi-tasking.”

Who gives a vermin’s backside what they call the Freedom Tower? You want dumb at ground zero? Here’s dumb: we are spending a billion dollars to build a misguided memorial that no one wants and cannot work and will not only contribute nothing to downtown and NYC, but will be very literally a bottomless money pit. Here is what the 9/11 memorial cannot include:  9/11. A handful of elite, clueless intellectuals have dictated that the site must be remade so that it does not acknowledge the attacks. In their own words, there can be no history of 9/11 found anywhere on the site “in order to preserve the integrity of the memorial.” Got that? The memorial to 9/11 at the WTC site cannot acknowledge 9/11. Why? Because that “would tell us what to think.” Like we were attacked. Instead, we are to “make up our own minds about what happened here.” Without any evidence of what did happen here. This way the site does not blame anybody for anything. There will be no “FDNY,” in the memorial; no “NYPD,” no “PAPD.” The word “firefighter” has been banished from the site. Same with “police officer.” Sure they gave their lives, but we cannot recognize that at the site. Why? So Michael Bloomberg can show us “everybody was equal.” The crushed fire trucks and the flyers of the missing will be hidden from sight in NYC’s first and only underground museum. Difficult to access; contributes squat to its surrounding community. Forget 9/11; we are getting an immense tribute to air headed political correctness.

“Beauty queen’s Gitmo “fun” post deleted,” the AP reported today. “Miss Universe’s blog posting about having fun at Guantanamo Bay has vanished from the pageant’s web site as embarrassed officials try to quash what they call a misunderstanding. The 22 year old Dayana Mendoza’s now-deleted late March posting said, “They showed us the boat inside and out…and it was a loooot of fun!”

So what is the “embarrassing” part? I mean, sure, a visit to a prison holding confessed terrorists and mass murderers should mostly be a fairly solemn and serious business. However, it is also a military camp on a tropical island populated with scores of servicemen her age and she is a 22 year old beauty queen. One can see where that might be a little fun.

However, this is Guantanamo Bay and Guantanamo Bay we know is a “concentration camp.” A “stain upon America” as our President has told us. Of course, he has also privately admitted it is a “pristine run place” but he’s closing it anyway because the rest of the world doesn’t like it. He’s also told us that the rest of the world doesn’t like us heating our homes to 78 degrees and driving our SUVs. So he’s driving up the price of oil to astronomical heights so we all can don our snuggies and Southern boys can slap their Confederate flag bumper stickers on their “Smart” cars. Now if only the rest of the world would take umbrage at young men wearing their jeans below their rumps and pontificating movie stars.

Some Italian official dude wants Dick Cheney and others to travel to Italy to stand trial for crimes committed at “Gitmo” (isn’t that kind of a “fun” name?). So, we know, a beauty queen should be embarrassed by describing it as “fun.” I mean, the audacity, the nerve, that America should it find it right to hold those who hate us and want to kill as many of us as they can. Who turn jetliners into weapons of mass destruction and destroy an office complex the size of a small city and murder nearly 3,000 people in the process. To have the unmitigated gaul to judge those people as guilty and deserving of punishment! Administered by us – America!

And witnessing this outrage, this crime against civilization, these prisoners of American oppression subject to the tortures of tropical weather and full medical and dental, this air headed beauty queen has the temerity to describe it as “fun.” Can you imagine?

This beauty queen should be embarrassed. In fact, she should be spanked. Live. On the internet. Now that sounds like fun.

At the
World Trade Center memorial, are the jihadist attacks upon America irrelevant to our commemoration of the deaths of 9/11? When the billion dollar memorial at the WTC site is complete, if it ever is complete, this is what it will express. Like Maya Lin’s (who sat on the jury that chose it) Vietnam War memorial that famously does not acknowledge the war, the 9/11 memorial at the WTC site will not acknowledge 9/11.

The memorial is not “to” 9/11. Rather it is exclusively to, as the architect and jury put it, “the absence in our lives caused by these deaths.” Any indication of how and why these deaths occurred, it has been decided, would “tell us what to think.” It would interfere with our own “memorial experience” to which we are to bring our “own interpretation of the day.” Our visit to the WTC site should be dedicated only to ourselves. Consequently, none of the authentic artifacts of the WTC that speak directly to the attacks may be returned to the site. That would impugn our memorial experience. As at Lin’s design, the memorial should express only ambiguity and narcissism.

Perhaps rendering a war fought on the other side of the world irrelevant to our commemoration of the “losses of the Vietnam era” as two jury members put it, at a memorial in Washington, DC might be justifiable. That that memorial should express only ambiguity and narcissism and be dedicated only to our feelings about that war not acknowledged might make sense.

However, the WTC is the site of the attacks. This is where it happened. Rendering the attacks irrelevant at the WTC site when we contemplate the deaths diminishes the significance and meaning of the attacks. In fact, it renders them irrelevant. We need not confront them; we need not consider any duty of ours in response; they are not worthy of our attention.

Only we are.

In fact, the memorial renders the deaths irrelevant. At least secondary. The Vietnam memorial is not about those names on the wall; it is about our reaction to those names on the wall. We never see the individual behind those names; we know nothing of them, except that they are dead. We see only the crying, grizzled vet leaning against it. We see the flowers or the trinkets that testify to the emotions of those left behind, not to those on the wall. And by that it is vicariously about us.

It is very, very narcissistic.

This is the goal of the jury at the WTC site. To make a visit to the WTC site about us. And that calls for banishing any evidence of Sept. 11.

This is why the museum, containing any artifacts such as the crushed fire trucks or flyers must go underground, the only such museum in all of New York City. To keep it out of sight of visitors to the site.

That is also why the names must be done without any reference to 9/11. Why they need to be done in a matter that expresses as little of the human being behind them as possible.

It’s not about them; it is about us.

The idea is that we focus solely on the weeping family member and forget the person in the flyer in their hand. By that we in turn focus on ourselves.

We focus only on the absence caused by the fact of death and not on the young woman who called home and stifling her tears said, “It doesn’t look like I’m getting out of here,” promised her love and then jumped. We are just supposed to wonder without references to the meaning of everything and not consider the men who marched to the towers and before going in, asked a priest for absolution. We are not supposed to confront the evil of men who would fly jetliners full of people into skyscrapers.

As we stand upon the WTC site, all of that is irrelevant.

In effect, this does more than deny the attacks by merely not acknowledging them at the place they occurred; it institutes upon the site a meaning that denies 9/11. The last thing 9/11 was was ambiguous. Actually, that was the second last thing it was. The last thing it was about was narcissism. It was a day and a time when in response to the abject evil that attacked Americans responded with courage, fortitude and sacrifice.

The jury got it wrong. It’s not about us. We should have simply listened to the people. By all that they did and said (see www.imagineny.org) they recognized what our first duty at the WTC site is: to bear witness. We must preserve and convey the history of 9/11. We do not at the WTC site have the option of not confronting 9/11. The site must speak equally to future generations as it does to us.

It’s not about, as the jury put it, “what all of us…need and deserve” it’s about what all of us owe each other. Our community, our nation, God. By that we triumphed over the evil that struck. That’s what the memorial needs to be about.

 

Nobody knows how the upheaval on Wall Street will affect downtown. State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli already predicts a loss of 40,000 jobs in the financial sector and 3.5 billion in state revenues.

 

Will workers disappear? What about residents? And the services and businesses, both large and small that depend upon both, what will happen to them? Nobody knows.

 

Downtown has the means to adapt, survive and thrive whatever comes.

 

The solution is in your front yard: ground zero. Thousands have come to the site and thousands and millions more will. They are all coming for one thing: 9/11.  What they saw and experienced through their television sets. They are coming for the authenticity that only this site can provide.

 

Exactly what they will not find at the WTC site. To satisfy the arbitrary whims of a disconnected handful and with utter disregard for our responsibility at the site, the first purpose of the eight acre memorial, which will cost a billion dollars to build and no one knows how many millions per year to maintain is NOT to preserve and convey what happened here, Sept. 11, 2001.

 

It will in effect, therefore, since this is the site of the event, deny 9/11.

 

And any authentic artifacts that speak directly to that history if returned to the site at all, must go out of sight in New York City’s first and only underground museum. It will be difficult to access and more difficult to exit.

 

A brilliant marketing strategy. The memorial will remake the WTC site so that it denies what all are coming to the site for. The jury that dictated the concept for the memorial, ignoring all that the people said and did in commemorating 9/11, wants to discard 9/11 and replace it with a tribute to ambiguity and narcissism. Just like Maya Lin’s (who sat on the jury) Vietnam War memorial. Which nobody is coming for. And which as a model for 9/11 memorial at the WTC site makes no sense. The Vietnam War memorial is a memorial in
Washington, DC to a war on the other side of the world. No battles of Vietnam were fought on the National Mall; none of those names on that wall died there. The WTC site is the scene of the crime. We have a higher obligation at this place than to build a billion dollar tribute to, as the jury has put it, “what all of us…need and deserve.”

 

And it is downtown that will suffer first and foremost because of this foolish narcissism (though if we are, um, hit again, a memorial to 9/11 that does not acknowledge 9/11 might really look like the final word in vanity. We will really have gotten what we “need and deserve”).

 

The highest rated episodes on the History Channel were their 9/11 shows, the last a riveting compliation of videos shot by downtown residents.

 

This past Sunday, 20,000 runners from as far away as Hawaii and London, England and hudreds more volunteers and spectators descended upon downtown for the seventh annual “Firefighter Stephen Siller Run.” They came to honor and celebrate the sacrifice and heroism of Firefighter Siller and the FDNY. None of which will be part of the memorial. Sacrifice, heroism, FDNY, firefighter or honor, that is.

 

They filled the local hotels; they ate and shopped and spent money at the local businesses.

 

The brand is 9/11; the icon are the authentic artifacts of the WTC and the FDNY and the flyers. Return the authentic artifacts such as the Sphere and a recognizable segmant of the facade to where they stood 9/11; put the musuem in an attractive, conspicuous building on the sight, overlooking it. With easy access and easy exit and with full access to all of the area’s other businesses and attractions. This is how you help the coffee cart guy and the newspaper vendor and how you keep the corner chain store.

 

We have it exactly backwards. We do not need nor does anybody want a literal replacement of the towers with “voids” featuring immense “headache producing” (as per builder Frank Sciame brought in to review the project) waterfalls meant to express “the absence in our lives caused by these deaths” (without any reference to how and why “these deaths” occured). Nobody called for hundreds of trees “symbolizing the rejeuvenation of life” – the Disneyfication of the WTC site.

 

To see what they did call for (if it was not already obvious) see www.imagineny.org: “The authentic artifacts have an inherent story telling ability that abstract symbolism could never duplicate.”

 

This past anniversary the families gathered at a small wooden framed pool containing two small wooden squares symbolizing the voids left behind by the destruction of the towers. 

 

It worked. Whatever the families were looking for they found there. A place at this place. It was accessible, comprehensible and allowed for a response.

 

And it was not bedrock; that is long gone. We were standing on gravel imported from who knows where in the middle of a construction site surrounded by huge trucks and tractors and mud puddles. 

 

Build the symbolic voids on the plaza in stone, under the open sky and the families will gratefully gather there each anniversary. Then restore the literal and authentic artifacts of 9/11.

 

This allows the underground space to be dedicated to infrastructure, train tracks, garages and shopping malls. it saves billions. It guarantees the memorial by 09/11/11 and ensures its viability.

 

For the price of moving the Sphere from Battery Park to the WTC site, expanding the “Visitor’s Center” to a full fledged museum and building and maintaining a plaza park like any other in the city, downtown gets a memorial and museum that will be of priceless value in its revitalization. That recent events has shown it cannot do without.

 

And America gets the memorial it truly needs and deserves

Re: “WTC Owners Rewriting Expectations at Ground Zero” Associated Press, 10/02/08. There are no “reflecting pools” in the WTC memorial design. As per the architect, in place of the towers there will be “voids ever emptying of water.” That is, in less artistic language, drains. Immense drains with, as the builder who reviewed the project described them, “headache producing” waterfalls. There will be hundreds of trees planted eradicating any vestige of 9/11 and the WTC. They symbolize, we are told, “the rejuvenation of life.” What they represent is the Disneyfication of 9/11. As per the jury that dictated the concept, there can be no history of 9/11 returned to the site “in order to preserve the integrity of the memorial.” The specific purpose of the design is to deny what happened and to deny honoring the values attacked. Instead, it will impose a meaning of ambiguity and narcissism upon the site.

The Office of the Commissioner of Baseball
Allan H. (Bud) Selig, Commissioner
245 Park Ave.
31st Floor
New York, NY 10167

Dear Sir:

Major League Baseball has a unique opportunity to honor true American heroes – those, who by their sacrifice, provided a bright light of hope on one of America’s darkest days.

As Anthony Rieber wrote in Newsday today, June 3, “Mets-Yankees on 9/11 would be a big hit,” the New York Mets and Yankees are going to need to make up the Subway Series rainout of May 16th. Why not, he wrote, relaying a very good idea from a Mets blog by Newsday writer David Lennon and Newsday reader Ryan Mulholland, play the game on Sept. 11, in memory of the thousands of innocents lost 9/11 in the attacks and in honor of the heroism and sacrifice in response?

“The current plan,” as Rieber writes, is to play the makeup game on the afternoon of Friday, June 27.

“Play it at 7 p.m. on Sept. 11,” Rieber notes, “and the ratings will be through the roof.”

The timing could not be better as this is the last year for both original stadiums and next year, which could be the start of the annual tradition, would the first for the new stadiums.

Which, not incidently, would require specially issued commemorative caps and t-shirts. All MLB lisence issue.

Imagine, as Reiber writes, “the stars of New York baseball wearing those NYPD and FDNY and PAPD hats” and playing a game on Sept. 11?

What could be more American than a baseball game in honor of true blue American heroes? A genuine, uplifting day to honor those who gave all.

Proceeds, Reiber suggests could go to 9/11 charities. Perhaps those, for instance, helping those suffering from health problems related to 9/11. Or perhaps to build at the two new Mets and Yankee Stadiums, “Walls of Rememberance” such as the “Brooklyn Wall of Rememberance” at the Met’s minor league Coney Island ballpark.

Only on one point would I argue with Mr. Rieber: the game would not be “just for 9/11 families” but for all Americans. And why not, as Mr. Rieber suggests, make it an annual game? With another by the Nationals in Washington, DC to add a national scope?   

All Americans were touched by the 9/11 attacks. “Since that day,” Mr. Rieber writes, “I have never used the “hero” in a sports story…our true heroes gave their lives on 9/11. And the Yankees, Mets and MLB can honor them with a scheduling switch that will be easy to do and will give us a night that will be hard to forget.”

“Why not?” Mr. Rieber writes.  A better question might be, how can we not?

I could not find, on their website, MLB.com, a suitable email address. Please feel free to cut and paste this, print it, sign it and mail it to the address given above. The phone number is (212) 931-7800.

The Mets address:

Shea Stadium
123-01 Roosevelt Ave
Flushing, NY 11368-1699
(718) 507-6387

They can be contacted by email at their website, mets.com

Yankees:

Yankee Stadium
161st St & River Ave
Bx, NY 10451
(718) 293-4300

Their website is yankees.com

If the fans speak out, and the Mets and Yanks and MLB believe there is dollars to be made, they might all get behind this. I’m more than open to any suggestions as to how to get this done, so please do not hesitate to offer any and all ideas!