At night, from a distance, you can see the two towers. They climb into the blue-black sky, and carry with them several thousand glowing windows, illuminated from within. The lights are suspended like quiet spirits who watch over the city.
As day breaks, the towers are revealed anew: Two steel structures, identical to their hard-working and famous parents in frame only. Only raw, unadorned beams and girders, occasional panes of glass, make up these new edifices; you can see the sun and sky through them. There are no cranes, floors, ceilings or walls that seek to finish or adorn them. Solid, naked to the world they speak like bones from history, but really they represent something in progress, something great that will be. They are unfinished like the work of democracy is unfinished, like the road to peace and understanding is unfinished.
Stand directly under these mighty sculptures. Ask a uniformed woman about their immense trade-tower size. With a Brooklyn accent, she'll tell you, "They brought steel in from all over. Many countries helped. Each glass pane that lights at night represents someone who died that day. It's the greatest memorial the world has ever seen." She adds with pride, "Only in New York."
Tip your head far back. Try to absorb the vast volume of the former World Trade Center. The scale of these new structures draw your eye upward, unobstructed, along the beams -- a mixture of steel, glass, light and air -- to the top. You see a cloud hovering -- and the sky through crisscrossing beams -- and suddenly you feel all the weight that dropped on September 11th 2001, lifting. Perhaps, for the first time, you can wrap your mind around the immensity of what happened.
At any moment, hundreds or thousands of people like you are looking at these memorial towers with respect, contemplation and wonder. From night to day the buildings are a contradiction. So, too, is it strange to have such structures dedicated to neither home nor office on this bustling island. But this is fitting; we are each made of contrasting energies. It is this duality which makes us uniquely human, and therein we each must find our personal harmony. This place might help us find it.
The memorial towers invite you to place your hands on them. Every support beam contributes to its overall balance and support. Such unyielding metal can with stand unimaginable pressure. No one would dare throw themselves against it. Of course, we know better. A panel affixed with thick studs provides a simple list: Here are the many countries that gave workers, steel, engineering expertise, artistic input and lives. It is a testament to an America and an idea that will be ever vulnerable -- yet never alone.
Millions come here every year to pay homage, to remember, or to have their spirits lifted up as if in a glass elevator; past the terrible scenes and violence, past loss and fear, past facts and concerns, past redundant history, money, religion and tragic bitterness. People come here to be transported to the breezy 110th floor, where hope lives and works.
No casual tourist will ever photograph the view from here, or sip a cocktail. No electronic media eye will be placed on top. No phones will ring, no transactions will be made, no risks or measures taken, no voices at all. Up here, the dizzying heights are reserved for our spirits alone -- the living and dead. Down below, our humble feet will remain rooted to the ground.
How lucky we Westerners are to be living where and how we are living. How fitting it would be to create a set of memorial towers, unfinished by day, seemingly alive by night, where once stood the magnificent World Trade Center.
Once, the integrity of the city and the confidence of America had been badly damaged. Imagine the New York skyline reclaimed in such a form. Imagine this homage to industry, progress and hope, calling out to friends and foreigners as if to say: "Here in the great city of New York, and hopefully one day in all the world, is a good, safe place to be."
Mike and Debbie, I write this to you as a friend and New Yorker. On the evening of the tragedy, I slept for only a moment -- just long enough to dream of a single, incredibly comforting, image. I dreamed of the upper floors of the twin towers at night. These beautiful buildings were so good to see, and yet I knew they were different... I cannot describe properly my feelings but to say that I have become obsessed with realizing this picture in my mind. I can't shake the intense stirring I feel for this simple dream that is at once mammoth and possible.
I know there are a great many people who would be willing to assist in launching a memorial of this magnitude. Furthermore, I am convinced that something needs to be done soon to counter the sense of conflagration and doom that presently reigns over so many hearts. I want this tragedy to move our nation to greater acts of benevolence, not violence. And I hope this kind of memorial would provide a fixed harbor where we can work out our demons while at the same time providing a magnet for more good works. So much needs to be done in the world.
And it would mean a great deal to me if you could give me some feedback. I intend to pass this idea around to anyone and everyone. Ideally, you could refer to some of your many contacts and do similarly -- only please address them personally, for there is so much out there now. The idea is much larger than I, a single person with no experience or fixed notion as to where to begin. So I figured I'd start with what I do know: My friends. And so I look to you.
Sincerely, andrew krauss
PS. "It was as if the building had sprung forth from the earth and from some living force, complete, unalterably right." -- Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead.
[Andrew:
I've been thinking about this since I read it -- and I can't shake the image from my mind. It's beautiful and right.
One thing comes to mind -- there should be some way for each of the memorial windows to light up. And on that person's birthday, anniversary, maybe even whenever anyone was thinking of them and called/emailed a special line, that window would glow. At the ground there would be a place -- like an electronic kiosk -- that would tell the lives of each of the victims and heroes. And when you went there to read about someone, their window would light up.
And of course, every September 11, the buildings would be a blaze of light.
-- MEL]
| WTC | 9/11 | Memorials | Architecture | New York City |
