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19 The Architecture of Memory
Post-September 11, memorials at the
World Trade Center and Pentagon
respectively symbolize the gaping pit
where international commerce formerly
towered, and the charred base of the military
establishment. But Shanksville, where Flight 93
crash-landed, has only a naked field. How
will that field look to future generations?
BY JESSE HICKS
0N THE S0UTI{ERN TIP 0F MANHATTAN, L6 acres remain gaping, six years after September 1,1,.
Construction cranes rise out of the hole, diligently assembling a new skyline. Developers
say that by 2012, at a cost of $3 billion, a complex of office buildings will again scrape the
sky. Its centerpiece, the would-be-iconic Freedom Tower, will rise tJ76 feet, making it the
world's tallest office building. From its apex will rise an illuminated spire, echoing the Statue
of Libert¡ the intense beam of light reaching over a thousand feet into the heavens. Below,
at street level, the names of the dead will be inscribed. lN WASHINGT0I{, 8.C., freshly poured
concrete awaits a collection of l-84 memorial benches, each overhanging a lit reflecting pool
and inscribed to a victim of the attack. By Sept. 2008, according to plan, the benches will be
arrayed in order of the victims' ages, from 3 to71,, beneath a protective canopy of maple tress.
lN RURAL SHANKSVILLE, PENNSYLVANIA, the wind comes in low and constant over the ñeld of
a reclaimed strip mine. Above the site loom two dragline excavators. Enormous crane-like
machines, this terrain belongs to them: A place of digging, stripping bare,only now recovering
its barest protections. They stand several stories high, weigh 2,000 tons; their scale dwarfs
anything in the human landscape. But they have done their excavating, unearthed enough. Now
they stand unmoving, rusting skeletons reaching into the sky. From an outstretched boom some
200 feet in the air blows an American flag. Here at Shanksville lies a blank field and a story. >)
BY JESSE HICKS
lÃllnter 200?, No. 11 t9
AUGUST 4, 2OO2t A youngster looks at angel f¡gures placed
at the edge of the field near Shanksvillle. Pennsylvan¡a.
where United Flight 93 crashed on Sept. il.2001.
A SCARLESS FIELÍI - that we can lead the ash and knorv its rneaning.
Six years ago, passengers on United Flight 93 realized theil role in a suicide Here lies the problenr: Absent the obvious symbolism of the World
gaping pit where international
plot and decided to rush the cockpit. A struggle for control ensued; the Trade Center or the Pentagon sites
- the
plane came low over tlìe ridge now behind us, its wings rocking. It passed so cornmerce forrÌ1erly torvered;the charrecl base of the military establishment
that one witness clai¡ned, "You could probably count has only a nake clñeld,tabula tasa. "A comnron ñeld one day.
lorv
- on its side - -A Shanksville
fielcl of honor forever," says the Flight 93 National Memorial Mission
the rivets." It struck the glound at 563 miles an hour: snroke rose high into
the heave¡rs, a black exhalation from the earth. Nearby photogl'¿¡pher Val Statement. But how will that field look to the future?
McClatchey captured the cloud's rise over an archetypal red barn, seconds Remembrance takes many forms; melnory is a process of constant
20 www.americancity.org
;Ë¿ies¿
{-i.tT:&i
closs clorninates one sicle: nealb¡,, a plastic binder holcls a hanclwritten copy of
FOR THOSE THREE, PERHAPS II OR
Book of Wisclonr, Chaptcr 3 ("But the souls of the just are in the hancl ol Gocl.
ancl the tolment of dcath shall not touch thenr"), alongside the Prayer of St.
I2 YEARS OLB ON SEPT. II, 2OOI,
Francis of Assisi ("O Divine Master. glant that I nray not so much seek to be THE ANSWER TO THE OUESTION OF
consoled as to co¡rsole: to be unclel'stoocl as to understancll to l¡e lovecl as 1o
*TOO SOON' WAS, IN FACT, *TOO LATE.'
love"). An oblong stone. painted black ancl inscribecl. "We lemember 5000+
victims." shares ground rvith a purple My Little Pony ancl a plastic Pooh Bear'. forget, the bumper stickel's. T-shirts, and nlagnets wat'tì tts ad infinitun-t
Dozens of baseball caps hang fronr the fence. some personalizecl ancl others I have a pen rvhich reads. "We Will Not Forget." follorved by "Texaco
only logos: The Anaheirn Angels. UCLA. VFW. Personalized license plates:
-Xpress Lube" ancl the business adcìress.
FREEDOM and USA4ME. A laminated story of "-I'he -Iì'adgety of 91 1," b¡, It seems strange. this collusion of grief and consurnerism, but "NeveL
eighth gracler Sarah Marie Re1,¡e1¿r. Stylized f'lags of the Pentagon and Tñin Forget" has its comfort. It illustrâtes Eclwald Linenthal's cottcept of
'lbrvels. American fìags. A stuffecl lion. White plastic crosses. "venelative consunìption." September il nle morabilia, says the professor'
One homemade plaque leacls, "For our herocs of 9-11-01. Never forget of history ancl leligious studies at Incliana University Bloomington.
thern lest we lre attacked again. "lest." becomes both a sacled lelic and commercial cornmoclitlr The "Never
- Bob ancl Cheryl Hargest." That
stlangely archaic. ntakes remembrance an act uot just of preserving. but Forget" headband offers a way to expless soliclality rvith the victims
of constant vigilance. We rnust stand guald against fot'gettingl Santayana's through the evcryday transactions of capitalist societ¡,.
over-quoted maxinr about thosc rvho cannot remeurber the past being But hou,does the litany against folgetting ntake rneaning ofSeptember
doomed to repeat it Il? As an affìrrnation of American values, "Never Forget" em¡rhasizes
- or having it repeated against them.
Perha¡rs that "lest" alrests our moulning process at tlìe most basic levcl: capitalism and national unity. But otheru,ise it falls flat; those po¡t-cttlture
"Neve r Folget." You'r,e seen this slogan. on l'-shilts. refrigeratol magnets, effluvia fail to aclvise us horv to remcmber.
Ø
rvall hangings, lapel pins, mousepads. Perhaps you've seen the iconic In the immecliate aftern]ath of traged1,, such an uncontplicated lesponse
c
o to\\,ers. superinrposed with an American fìag. encircled by a pentagon. strikes us as appropliale. On the Penn State caurpus this April. follorving tlte
C
,
a
Maybe you've noticed the oval. European-style bumper stickel reading stuclent shooting at Virginia Tcch, "We Remember 4/l6107" T-shilts appealed
C)
Ø
"9/ll" and "Never Forget." And maybe )¡ou've seen the more ominous in a nratter of hours. simple declalations of empathlt "lt's alntost as if in the
expression. "Nevel'Forget, Never Folgive." We nrust rer¡renrber to never early days there's not much else to sa¡'." ¡s Linenthal puts it. Yet seeing lhose
22 www.americanclty.org
Like World War II, it was an event mined for entertainment, whether the Crescent of Embrace." Rawls claims the design celebrates the Muslim
final production had the earnest reverence of. Saving Private Ryan, lhe hijackers of Flight 93, the crescent is a symbol of Islam and oriented toward
testosterone-fueled explosiveness of Pearl Harbor,or thepop-intellectualism Mecca. Tom Burnett Sr., father of one of the victims, agees: "I told them
ofa Ken Burns documentary. "Never Forget" holds no power here. we'd be a laughingstock if we did this," he said tothe Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
What, then, can a memorial accomplish, beyond triggering memories of the Burnett has refused to allow his son's name to be used in the memorial.
event itself? For Stastny, a memorial should be "experiential" marked by Mike Rosen of. the Rocky Mountain Neps offered a simple solution:
space and reflection rather than "objective"
-
the typically monumental "Just come up with a different design that eliminates the double meaning
- -
memorial. A useful memorial, in other words, speaks to the living, offering and the dispute." Double meaning, for Rosen, is one meaning too many.
more than an unapproachable headstone. For Linenthal, such reflection For him, disputation has no place in memorial.
provokes the "hope that visitors will not only remember the dead in these The World Tiade Center site has taken a similar approach.ln 9/11: The
particular situations and what they've done, but also extend that sense of Culture of Commemoration, David Simpson describes the design as "an orgy
caring to victims of terrorism and political violence around the world." of nomination: the 'Park of Heroes,' the 'Wedge of Light,' the 'Garden of
the World,' 'Memory's Eternal Foundation"' all overseen, of course, by
-
the 1,776-foot Freedom Tower. Presumably there's no misinterpreting that
I¡ISSENTING VOICES singular message. Yet, Simpson wonders, what depth of reflection can such
For the September 1.1. memorials, such expansive empathy seems unlikely. a memorial provoke? "One might think that any democracy requiring this
Early plans for the World Trade Center site included an International sort of browbeating in the name of architecture must be in deep trouble,"
Freedom Center museum. It would have staged exhibits on various he writes. Democratic memorials might dare to risk multiple meanings. They
genocides and crimes against humanity to illustrate the difficult process might dare to invite active participation reverential to be sure, but with an
of establishing "international freedom." Critics balked at placing the -
understanding that debate and discussion also serve memory.
September l.l. attacks within a larger struggle for freedom, however, with For former New York Governor Pataki, howeve¡ "In the end, there is
The New York Times architecture critic Nicolai Ouroussoff declaring the no right way to remember. It is only right that we remember" a slight
museum's design "Orwellian," a "theme-park view of American ideals in expansion upon "Never Forget." Again one thinks of the Ozymandias
-
an alluring wrapper." After much politicking, then-New York Governor criterion, imagining "the decay / Of that colossal wreck" at the third or
George Pataki banned the IFC from the World Trade Center site. fourth centenary of the Freedom Tower, its names worn smooth by time,
Of course, the practicalities of memorial-building influenced his decision. What then will it mean?
Fundraising for a $3 billion dollar rebuilding has enough challenges without It's unsurprising that a politician would evade such a question, but that
adding a controversial design to the mix. Developer Larry Silverstein's doesn't mean we all get off so easily. "Never Forget" marks a beginning,
insurance settlement following September 11 paid $1 billion, supplemented not an end. As long as people can share it, the process of memory is never
by $ZSO million from the State of New York and another $1 billion in bonds complete, always in contestation, necessarily unstable. As Stastny puts it, "I
issued by New York's Port Authority. (Such impressive sums tend to attract think a memorial, like a city, is never finished."
intense scrutiny; MSNBC's David Shuster, for one, has questioned the
impartiality of the design competition, suggesting Pataki exerted influence
in exchange for political donations.) New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg A TWICE-TOLB TALE
has stepped in, helping raise over $165 million. Potential major donors such We remember in stone and in story; neither lasts forever. All memorials
as Cantor Fitzgerald and PricewaterhouseCoopers have withheld donations, are temporâry, subject to the ravages of time. Shanksville, for now, has
however, until the grouping of victims' names has been determined. The no elaborate cenotaphs, no Freedom Tower stretching for the sky. The
Pentagon memorial hopes to raise $32 million, but large donations have come fence collects its tributes; benches record the passengers'names. There
slowly. And in Shanksville, the initial fundraising brought in only $i0.4 million is a small wooden building, not much bigger than the average bathroom.
- in two years. The National Park Service has taken ove¡ hoping for at least It offers shelter from the wind, the breath that always blows here, always
$30 million. But as time passes, donations only get harder to come by. animating, always threatening to erase.
One memorial outside any of the crash sites does include multiple voices, On the coldest days, the Flight 93 Ambassadors huddle inside this
despite the difficult political-economic environment. In Phoenix, Arizona, humble outpost. There you'll find them, ready to tell the story. When I
a state-sponsored 9/11 memorial included panels that put the attacks into visited in January, I found Emily Jerich and her husband, Stan, waiting.
historical context. Among the inscriptions, visitors read, "Middle East She asked whether I'd heard "the story." I had, many times, from many
violence motivates attacks in US," "Foreign-born Americans afraid" and different sources, and I learned to appreciate them as variations on a
"Terrorist organization leader addresses American people." Needless to theme not "the" story, but a collection of voices, reading from the
say, the inclusion of such timely, newspaper-headline sentiments provoked
-
same event, each with its own rhythms and revelations. The stories were
controversy. When right-wing bloggers quickly denounced the memorial, extended names, ways of finding home in an event so challenging to our
Arizona governor Janet Napolitano responded, "This Memorial is unique, comprehension. Admixtures of dread and hope, they did not try to deny
bold, dynamic, educational and unforgettable. The thoughts and remarks time, but only to understand it, to find a place within it.
etched in stone will serve as learning tools for all of us, our children and our Jerich recounted her version of the story emphasizing a Bible found in
children's children." That memory and thought might work in concord seems the wreckage, not open to a particular page as some claim, but flapping
to have struck many as anathema to "Never Forget." in the wind. She speaks in conditionals: If the plane had waited only four
The Flight 93 permanent memorial has its own unintended controversy, minutes, if it had flown only three more seconds. Had it waited four minutes,
whipped up primarily by Califomia blogger Alec Rawls. Architect Paul the plane would have been grounded. Had it flown for three more seconds,
Murdoch originally titled the maple-tree landscape in his design, "The it might've struck Shanksville's only school. She calls her ambassadorship
a duty, is proud and humbled "To be here, to guard the place, to tell the
story." Late¡ another ambassador arrives, Sue Strohm. She tells a less
THAT'S WHERE THE PLANE CAME detailed version of the story saying she realizes she's there to listen as much
IIOWN. SEE HfIW THE HEMLOCKS as to speak. "The plane went over everybody's house," she says.
ARE BURNEB? And everyone has their story. fl