Rant: Sept. 11th memorial to cost one billion?!?!

[LiberalPartisan]

NEW YORK - Construction costs for the World Trade Center memorial have risen to an estimated $1 billion — twice as much as officials had planned to spend.

Last year, rebuilding officials said it would cost $490 million to build the memorial and an adjacent museum, which is slated to take up eight acres of the 16-acre site when it opens in 2009. Preliminary site work began in March.

Contractors this week issued a revised estimate of $1 billion, a person familiar with the figures told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the number had not yet been publicly announced.

Continued...

Mayor Bloomberg says anything more than $500 million is unacceptable?

Excuse me?


There is no reason whatsoever to be spending this amount of the taxpayers money on a memorial. It is absolutely ridiculous. I can see erecting a statue or placing a plaque(s) on a small portion of the 'hallowed ground' - yes my eyes roll when I hear that term - but what they are proposing is garish, tacky, obscenely overpriced and just plain self indulgent.

And as an aside - the 911 Families commission needs to register as a political organization. I'm sick and tired of them coopting the memory of the dead for their own purposes. People die in obscurity in this country every day and their death is no less meaningful than those who perished on 9-11.


End of rant...

[treestar]

1. I agree, the politicians are forever using 911 and using the victims

like some repukes use the "troops" whom they presume to agree with them on everything.

[corporate_mike]

2. I thought Clinton/Bush Sr were raising private funds for the memorial

[Deja Q]

5. If it's private funds, they can be as obscene as they want.

But if it's taxpayer money, they should put in some reasoned restraint, definitely.

Hell, a tv anchor in the twin cities is smug in his article that we should have bought the Twins a new stadium 5 years ago because it was only $300 million then, not $500 million now. What Pat Kessler can't fathom is that Pohlad can pay for it himself and save the money for things that far, far, far more people (including Pohlad) need: Like roads and especially education.

[MADem]

3. What ever happened to the "small, dignified memorials" of old?

The ones that were PART of your life? Not entities UNTO themselves, but were part of the community??? The small marker or statue in the public square, the plaque on the wall, the memorial obelisk? Nowadays, memorials are MASSIVE FUCKING PARKS that NO ONE CAN USE. CEMETERIES, without the COFFINS. No laughing, no living. Better be somber--OR ELSE. The Oklahoma memorial isn't the place to have a city barbecue and three legged races, softball, and snowcones for the kids, is it?

I dunno, I like the idea of places where people congregate and actually LIVE as memorials. Parks, ballfields, playgrounds, that sort of thing. Not big solemn expanses of concrete and some whacko designers' ideas of what looks good. They oughta put a sports field, playground, and park for kids where that PA plane went down. They oughta let people cool off in a fountain in summer, skate in winter, listen to live music and meet and greet friends in NY. The Pentagon should put up a marker at Ground Zero (the green area in the center) and on the side by the USMC helo pad where the a/c went in, and get their asses back to work, not plant a field of symbolic chairs out in the middle of nowhere.

I know other people's mileage varies on this issue. I don't (now) live near any of these memorials, so it ain't up to me. I don't support taxpayer money going for them, though. I found the WW2 Memorial in DC to be a Germanic abomination that ruined the open lines of the mall.

Bigger isn't always better. Simplicity has it's place, and so does UTILITY. Life is for the living.

[shadowknows69]

4. Obscene

At that price (with massive gouging going on I'm sure) it's more a memorial to the international commerce that was lost that day not the human lives. Which subsidiary of Haliburton or the Carlyle group got the bid this time?

[elehhhhna]

6. I thought the two light towers they projected (when was that, anyway?)

in place of the twin towers was as stunning and moving as any monument could be.

[gauguin57]

7. I agree. I thought that was touching, moving ... a wonderful tribute

... the ghost lights of those buildings.

[elehhhhna]

8. Why can't they go with that?

A generic granite list will never top the Vietnam War Memorial.

[OneBlueSky]

9. um . . . how about a nice plaque? . . .

you know, something nice with the names engraved on it? . . . might cost a few grand for the polished brass, and a few more for the engraving . . . plant some trees and flowers around it, and the whole project comes in well under a million bucks . . .

this wasn't the Vietnam War or Iwo Jima . . . the notion of spending a billion dollars to "commemorate" the event makes about as much sense as spending a trillion to "liberate" Iraq . . .

[Joanne98]

10. The Vietnam memorial costed 4 million.

[paparush]

11. Is Halliburton building it??????