Reply #49: Tell that to the residents of the nearby neighborhoods [View All]

[Ignacio Upton]

David Stanke is an example. His apartment across the WTC Site on Liberty Steet, was completely damaged, and it took him TWO YEARS before he could finally move back into his apartment. I agree with his sentiment regarding the memorial debate:
http://www.downtownexpress.com/de_117/talking%20point.html

The memorial activist groups have gotten plenty of the issue of the memorial. If you leave sites of the attacks to family members, they will exert their grief in the wrong ways. Keeping a 16 arce hole and necropolis in Lower Manhattan filled with all sorts of semi-meaningful symbols, will not make up for their loses. Rebuilding and making a positive memorial will help, but so will carrying out the victim's memories on this Earth. That means campaigning for better emergency responses systems (like getting better radios for firefighters.) That means getting more Homeland Security funding for places in danger. And that mean finding out the truth of 9/11, and helping the rescue workers who were lied to. Collectively, doing those things will do more to honor the victims of 9/11 than a memorial package will (see one of my previous posts for the my term "memorial package.")

(I may sound a bit passionate in responding to your response post, to use a euphemism, but I've been following the rebuilding debate zealously since 9/11/01. I'm pretty opinionated on this issue.)