According to this morning’s NYT:
After a summer of furious and steadily rising criticism, Gov. George E. Pataki evicted the proposed International Freedom Center museum yesterday from its place next to the World Trade Center memorial site. With that, the museum declared itself to be out of business.
It was always a horrible idea and sensible people of all stripes, from the NYPD and fire department unions, politicians and people like, well – like you and me – vigorously opposed the insensate mixture of squishy pop-culture and politically correct guilt manteling. According to a June WSJ editorial the IFC would have been:
” …’a journey through the history of freedom’–…(but) to the IFC’s organizers, it is not only history’s triumphs that illuminate, but also its failures. The public will have come to see 9/11 but will be given a high-tech, multimedia tutorial about man’s inhumanity to man, from Native American genocide to the lynchings and cross-burnings of the Jim Crow South, from the Third Reich’s Final Solution to the Soviet gulags and beyond.”
Not much to do then with the people who lost their lives there, one sunny September day. Nothing at all to do with those who created that hole in the sky. Few lessons drawn from the brave response, even sacrifices of New Yorkers of every stripe to a disaster that was almost unimaginable – a kind of bravery that for a moment anyway, reminded us of who we could be when times were at their worst, and we were at our best.
But that’s all over now. We took it back. Well done.
Sunlight really is the best disenfectant.
My deepest and humblest thanx to Lex – and all other bloggers who linked to him – when he first posted about this several weeks ago. This type of grassroots effort went a very long way to helping us achieve this outcome. Now we can get down to the business of planning a fitting memorial for all those innocents, in a way that honors their sacrifice while effectively thumbing our noses at the groups who rejoiced on 9/11.
In memory of Heather Lee Smith, Flight 11
Had to add something – it’s interesting you talk about “sunlight being the best disinfectant”. I received an email from the Take Back the Memorial team last night about the IFC’s failure. I immediately thought of vampires – Bring them into the harsh light of day (scrutiny) and they shrivel up and blow away.
One more thank you to Lex and all the other bloggers, for not forgetting about all the victims of 9/11.
Ahmen Lex… But I really have to wonder how the IFC interjected themselves into the WTC redevelopment in the first place?
Heya, Kris – It was the least that any of us could do. Pleased to have been in some small way a part of it.
Babs? No idea how bad ideas germinate. I just know that they flourish when good folks are too tired to fight them…
Babs- it was all about politics, money and the allure of celebrity. The Lower Manhattan Development Corp. gave the IFC $300 million, in taxpayer money, to fund the center. Lots of political clout in that funding. And DeNiro’s TriBeCa Film Company was going to be part of it, a well as a controversial art museum. All from a group of people who felt we all needed to “learn a lesson” from “our mistakes”. The whereabouts of that $300 million will bear watching, that’s for sure.
And Lex, yes these bad ideas do flourish as you say, however in this case, good people found their inner strength and energy and stood up for what is decent and right. The might of 50,000 signatures and 15 9/11 family groups just couldn’t be ignored forever.