The Memorial

May 6, 2006 -- If ever there was a time to regain control of the ever-expanding World Trade Center memorial, this is it.

"The LMDC [Lower Manhattan Development Corp.] should build something that we can afford," Mayor Bloomberg said yesterday, "and if you have to change the design, so be it."

He couldn't be more right.

Back in March, we - respectfully - proposed what we openly acknowledged as a bit of heresy: "Why not build a less grandiose memorial?" we asked.

Clearly, Mayor Mike (and, no doubt, others) are coming to the same conclusion. And no wonder:

* Cost estimates for the memorial and museum complex, originally less than $500 million, this week rose to a near mindboggling $1 billion - far more than for any other American memorial.

* The World Trade Center Memorial Foundation, charged with raising money, has done little in that regard and some see it as dysfunctional.

* Some 9/11 family members are counting on lawsuits to press their own agendas.

* The foundation's president, Gretchen Dykstra - who is ultimately responsible for the feeble fundraising efforts and who some say is in over her head - may be on her way out.

* Officials are even said to be rethinking which body should oversee the project: The foundation? The LMDC? The Port Authority?

* Meanwhile, Mayor Mike is busy tossing out new ideas to redo the whole thing. Yesterday, he suggested moving the museum and visitors center to the lobby of the Freedom Tower.

"It's the perfect place," he said. "It's a good use of that lobby . . . It's two less buildings that you have to build."

That's absolutely the right kind of thinking. But if the pricetag is still going to be something like $1 billion, or even $500 million, it's worth asking: Justwhich features, wonderful as they may be, are absolutely essential, especially given everything else that will be built?

Our thinking back in March was to look to, say, the Vietnam Memorial.
"There can be majesty in simplicity, to which anyone who has ever visited the starkly powerful Vietnam Memorial - the Wall - can testify," we wrote. A rebuilt Ground Zero "would be much the better for it if something similar were substituted for the overly complex, grotesquely expensive edifice now planned for the site."

And the Vietnam Memorial memorial, by the way, came in at something like $8 million.

Not $1 billion.

Nearing five years after the attacks, the stagnant WTC site is a growing national embarrassment. No one has decried this fact more than us.
We've blamed Gov. Pataki, who claimed to have taken charge of the rebuilding, for most of the delays and assorted snafus. (Remember how no one thought to factor in security concerns in planning the Freedom Tower?)

But with a deal now seemingly set to move forward on the commercial towers, it's time - long past time, in fact - to get the memorial under control.

A lot can be said for keeping it simple."
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Okay, no one is getting away with spending 8 million. Try 50-100 mill to duplicate the Vietnam Memorial today, and I for one would hate to see another such eyesore but that's another story.

Never, ever let someone named Gretchen be in charge of anything more important than getting the kids off to school is lesson 1-million we've learned, and never let liberal politicians get involved with anything called a MEMORIAL.

It isn't happening, folks. And don't be surprised if the thing is a target before it's completed.

Talk about making a strong statement. NY can't even rebuild before they destroy it again, and on that, my friends, make book as the next attack on America.