You'd be less safe from terrorists in Indiana than in NYC. MOST THREATENED STATE IN THE UNION. We must protect the Amish.

Where else are we going to get our rocking chairs and apple butter?

Threatened by what? Technology coming in like fiber optics through their pastures.

Yeah, this is something I'm staying away from. I went to NYC in Feb. of 02. My gf kept saying "Let's go see Ground Zero." I didn't want to go, because I didn't want to be a gawker.

My parents-in-law took a morbid ghoul tour of ground zero and the pentagon and that field in Pennsylvania in one big shot. And these people only travel to Disneyworld. I cannot fathom that mentality.

it took me almost a year before i could even drive past 'ground zero'. incidentally, i hate that fucking name. it literally makes me sick b/c it's become some kind of tourist trap - how many terrorist attack sites have a fucking VIEWING PLATFORM? i mean, it's gross, it's become totally commercialised, and to me it's just a gross attempt in the wake of something terribly wrong with the world in general to whoop up some kind of distorted sense of nationalism that only helps to further the divide between us 'good' americans and the 'evildoers' from some other place in the world that threaten our very way of life.
i realise my view is very, very distorted on this, and anyone who wants to call me out is more than welcome to, but this is never going to be anything but a sore subject for me.

I agree completely Bearpaw, I just stopped arguing the issue. It's a creepy old world we live in and those creepy things all get movies of the week, laminated plaques and bobblehead dolls.

i live in tribeca and you can't imagine the number of tourists who ask me where ground zero is on any given day. sweet vacation.

i went to ground zero 9/11/02 and it was a really powerful and cathartic moment. I'm really glad i went. I'm also glad i went because my mom was super scared for me to take the train into NY that day, and it felt great to be in NYC and see everyone living their lives.

we went to the church near by that served as a make shift hospital and meeting area. There were so many memorials and amazing stories on every nook and cranny in the place and it made me proud to be a human. I know it's weird to take a positive from so much tragedy, but that's how i felt from that experience.

long story short, i'm glad i went to ground zero.

Some friend of mine had someone stop him and ask where "9-11" was. He was like, "oh, you mean 'ground zero,'" and they said "no, 9-11!"

maybe he was looking for 7-11

what a fucking asshole. The only semi-morbid thing i did was take a photo of the pentagon where it had the hole in it when i went to close up. But i wasn't like, this is where countless people died i just found the sheer structure damage was intense. Then seconds after i found out people weren't supposed to due to security.

when i was in nyc i refused to go down there.

I was in NYC for a wedding and only had 5 hours of free time. I spent them at the WTC. The overpowering nonthingness was almost too powerful for me. I'm glad I went.

Things I wasn't glad I saw - Chinese vendors not even a block away, selling their cheap ass wares which included I Love NY mugs, fake Louis Vuitton bags and Travis Tritt CDs. And a big sign over the Century 21 department store that read "Remember Father's Day". Amazing.

century 21 can't advertise because some meanie flew a plane into buildings nearby?

location aside, this is my favorite part about NYC.
cheap bootleg shit being sold on tables.

I thought the term "remember" was a poor choice.

be reasonable dude. people live here and they have to eat this month even though there was an attack 5 years ago.

While I'm sure there's always going to be people like this at the site, wolfing down a hot pretzel and a Mountain Dew before they head up to Times Square, I would bet that many if not most people on that platform are silent, respectful and deeply moved by being there.

Some people visit their parents' graves, some don't. Some people have to face the physical facts of their loss to grieve. How many people visiting the Vietnam Memorial in D.C. actually have no personal connection to the Vietnam war? Are they exploiting the idea of the Memorial or somehow cheapening it because they're going to have lunch and hit the Air and Space Museum next? I don't really think so.

I haven't been to Ground Zero, and not because I haven't had the opportunity. But a few years ago, when I was driving solo cross country, I went to the Oklahoma City Memorial. Hadn't even been planning on it until a day or two before I passed through town. When I decided to go, it wasn't because of some morbid interest (OK, some of it was morbid interest--I'm only human), but because I knew it would probably affect me like nothing else I could have done that day.

I thought I knew about the memorial--the two black gates and the reflecting pool now blocking the street, the rows of empty chairs, one for each victim, where the Murrah Building once stood--from reading about it or seeing it on TV. What I didn't know about was the museum. In the building across the street from the Murrah building, which survived (though not undamaged) because there was a parking lot between it and the Ryder truck, they've put in a museum that tells the story of the Oklahoma City bombing, minute by minute, day by day chronologically through the bombing and the aftermath.

It was devastating. I cried all through it. To this day I can't describe it to anyone without choking up. I have rarely felt more connected to the human race than in those few hours I was in that museum, seeing the news footage, hearing the cacophany of sounds and interviews with survivors and rescuers, seeing the twisted steel girders, shattered office supplies or piles of charred shoes saved from the rubble. I never would have gotten that experience without being there, and I think I'm a better person for it.

And it makes me write long-winded, overly-dramatic, self-important message board posts. So the terrorists have won.

As an Oklahoman, couldn't have said it better myself. When the design phase was going on and I heard about the chairs, I wasn't on board at all, but I was wrong and it's a very tasteful memorial and not explotive which is what mattered to me. I'm not sure if you noticed, but of the chairs, there's some smaller ones that represent the children. That is what gets to me.

Man that's bullshit.

I fucking HATE all this post 9/11 bullshit.

Gerling's album got banned in the US 'cause it had the word 'terrorists' in the title. Shihad had to change their name 'cause it sounded too much like Jihad.

All that shit is fucking stupid.

amgl is not a fascist!!!

I DONT GET IT WAS HE IN THAT BUILDING OR SOMETHING? WHERE'D HE GET THAT SWEET VIDEO PHONE

i watched it a few weeks ago and felt like i had a black cloud hanging over my head for two days.

I realize that different people mourn in different ways, and that there are those who lost friends or loved ones in the attacks who require a trip to the location of their deaths, but the whole "Ground Zero" memorial, with its viewing platform, proposed reflecting pools, building footprints, et al strike me as unnecessarily sentimental. It reminds me of those cheap wooden crosses that have been springing up along highways and intersections - crass, distracting, and tasteless. Yes, your loved one died on this EXACT spot. I see she loved teddy bears and the color orange. But mankind invented cemeteries for a reason - they are not JUST for interring remains. They're also a great place to mourn, and nobody will give you a second look if you cry or talk to yourself.

When 2752 people lose their lives needlessly and spectacularly it deserves remembrance. The fact that 9-11 was an attack on America makes it larger than 2752 private losses – it was a loss for all of us, and should be memorialized. It deserves a great monument. I wonder, though, if the eventual memorial shouldn’t be built somewhere OTHER than ground zero. The loved ones of Vietnam soldiers don’t have to travel to some unnamed ditch halfway across the world to grieve – the memorial in DC is moving enough. The Germans rebuilt Dresden, and the Japanese Hiroshima. They didn’t turn them into giant barren memorials – but neither did they forget.