Va. Tech faces decision on bloodied hall

[Ignacio Upton]

Source: Yahoo! News/Associated Press

By SUE LINDSEY, Associated Press Writer 9 minutes ago

BLACKSBURG, Va. - Like the people of New York, Oklahoma City and Littleton, Colo., the Virginia Tech community faces a difficult decision on what it will do with the scene of a tragedy.
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The university has made no plans beyond cleaning and repairing the flat-roofed, oblong stone structure, which has remained under police guard since the killing spree.

However, faculty, students and alumni have already weighed in with suggestions for Norris' future, one of more than 100 buildings on Virginia Tech's 2,600-acre campus. Built in the early 1960s, it houses the department of engineering science and mechanics.

Ideas for the building's future range from returning it to use as classrooms to making it a memorial or even knocking it down.



Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070505/ap_on_re_us/virginia_tech_shooting_norris_hall

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Personally, I feel that they should gut the building, put a memorial in the central entrance, and re-dedicate the building in the name of the victims. Such action would create a living memorial for the victims in the name of academic research. The OKC model of literalizing people's deaths and creating a terra nova for hollowed ground is a bad idea. As someone who has obsessively followed the rebuilding debate over at the WTC (although not as much in the last two years, since I feel that it has become a circle-jerk for the "Freedom Tower") I remember hearing some of the worst arguments being made for leaving all of those 16 acres vacant. However, commonsense prevailed in the case of the WTC, as public opinion opposed making the WTC into another OKC.

[Johnny Appleseed]

1. Hmm what did they do at Columbine?...

it's a better comparison than with the WTC or Oklahoma. I honestly don't recall, though I'm thinking they simply re-used the facilities.

[brentspeak]

2. They should demolish it

What happened in there was so terrible that no one could feel comfortable around it.

[Ignacio Upton]

3. VA Tech probably doesn't have enough open space to do that

In the meantime, where will they have their classes? I think that they should gut the interior, change the look of the exterior, and rename it in honor of the victims. OKC was a bad precedent for building memorials. Giving the building a makeover and a memorial in the lobby and re-dedicating it would be fitting.