9-11 School Children’s Poster

It is a sad situation, but it seems that in the US we do memorials very well.  From the Oklahoma bombing to the Vietnam Memorial our memorials seem to be very fitting tributes to the heroes who lost their lives.  The 9-11 Memorial in New York is no exception.

Where the grand World Trade Centers once stood, two large fountains now outline what was once their foundation.  The water cascades down, deeper and deeper into the hole of the foundation.

WTC Fountain in place of the original foundation footprint

The names of those who died in this tragic event are cut into the quarter-inch steel surrounding these cascading water fountains, serving as holders for roses.  The top of the Freedom Tower, the tallest in the Western Hemisphere, could not be seen through the fog and clouds.

Memorial Rose and the Freedom Tower

The day I visited, it was an appropriately gloomy, cloudy day with rain.

Memorial Umbrella

The nearby World Trade Center Transportation Hub is a Santiago Calatrava designed building.  It is often referred to as the world’s most expensive train station, at over $4,000,000,000.  I’m told there were some cost overruns.  This seems to happen often with Calatrava.  But in the end, we are left with a very beautiful building.

Calatrava Memorial Abstracts

The huge new Freedom Tower, this memorial, and most memorials cause an initial debate over differences of opinion on what should have been done.  But after awhile they are broadly accepted as beautiful reminders of our troubled history.