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The anniversary

4 comments on The anniversary

The anniversary
: The city just announced plans for the second anniversary of September 11.

: Children of the victims will read the names of the dead (God, I can’t imagine how hard that would be). Children will also perform music.

: The families will descend the ramp and lay flowers on the lowest level.

: At night, the Towers of Light will come back for one night and the city plans to bring them back on every anniversary (I applaud this).

: Crain’s New York (in a story behind its barbed wire) says that most businesses will operate as normal on the anniversary this year, including Broadway, which shut down last year.

The Wall Street Journal reports that there will be little commemorative news coverage and that advertisers will promote as usual.

: Michele fears that we have forgotten too much only two years later.

: I doubt that we’ve found the proper level of commemoration: A shut-down is too much; normal is too little.

We need some unavoidable if brief tribute simply so we do not try to forget.

For example:

At the moment the first jet hit and at the moment the second tower fell, all broadcasters observe a moment of silence; all busiensses and schools observe a moment of silence; all churches ring their bells. Just so we remember.

: I will take off work on Sept. 11 and go to the World Trade Center, reporting on the day here as I did last year.

4 responses to “The anniversary”

  1. ken Avatar
    ken

    You should definitely check out The Falling Man by Tom Junod in the September Esquire. It’s a great piece.

  2. Jay Gilbert Avatar
    Jay Gilbert

    Last year, as the 9/11 commemoration events went to a level I thought was just insane, I asked my 89-year-old father what he remembers about the first anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor, and what kind of commemorative events occurred. He said there was nothing. We were too busy fighting the people who had attacked us to do anything as silly as interrupting ourselves for symbolic feel-good self-indulgent events. I agree: we should do a little to commemorate, but not much.

  3. KJ Avatar
    KJ

    I know the public park, memorial types disagree, but the best commemorative would be to re-build the Towers, 25 stories higher, and in the age of fertility clinics, make ’em triplets.

  4. Catherine Avatar
    Catherine

    Jay, while they were busy in an all out World War at the time, they have a service every anniversary at the USS Arizona Memorial and December 7 is “Pearl Harbor Day.” There is enough books, and documentary films about Pearl Harbor.
    That generation was also impassioned enough that people joined the service after Pearl Harbor in droves unlike after 9/11.
    I do agree that there has been an Oprahisation of sentiment the world (look at the outpouring of flowers by the British when Diana died – that is a modern phenom and not very British)and things can be over done. I also recall watching on live prime time TV in England in ’99 a re-opening of a bar at which 3 or 5 people were killed 3 or 6 months before by an IRA bomb.
    I think the families should have their memorials (Ground Zero is the graveyard for many who were never recovered), there should be a moment of silence, but that is enough. Working downtown, I think about it every day.