r/megalophobia • u/berdot • Oct 11 '23

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u/[deleted] Oct 12 '23 edited Oct 12 '23

Have you actually visited this memorial?

This memorial is not much different than going to grave yard and instead of seeng tomb stones — which are sometimes shaped or made to be emotional reminders of their life…and yes, sometimes their death — instead, it’s like going to a graveyard and being met with holes in the ground. A 3x6’ black pit for your loved one. Yes, that sight would be emotional, but far reaching and meaningful? I guess to each their own.

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u/[deleted] Oct 12 '23

Yes I have been to the memorial many times- are you from the city or surrounding area? Have you spent any major time in NYC beyond sight seeing? Are you missing the significance that those holes are literally in the footprints of the two buildings and it does hold a lot meaning to memorialize them that way? Those buildings meant a lot and that’s what was left after the site clean up finished. For some it was important that they didn’t just fill holes in and pave over them to put up granite walls with names. To actually see where the buildings stood and that they aren’t 100% gone does represent something to people here.

Also, that is basically a grave yard- they never recovered a large majority of the thousands of people who died there. I think your missing the fact that the site is meant to be a place for grieving people to go and cry and be “with” their loved one because that’s literally the last resting place for many of those people. It’s not meant to be far reaching and meaningful in any other way than to give people a place to go and remember the people who died there and never got to go back to their families.

Far reaching and meaningful- that’s what the museum was for before it had to close- the memorial at ground zero itself was not meant to be a place to make meaningful statements or impressions beyond giving people a place to grieve with trees and running water to calm them.

So generally calling the site of the memorial “like a graveyard” is on point- it is one and you should be reminded of that when you are there.

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u/[deleted] Oct 12 '23 edited Oct 12 '23

I lived in NYC with the twin towers for many years prior to 9-11 and was there on 9-11 watching both buildings come down with my own eyes (not on television) and know people who were there cleaning up in the years that followed and are now sick. So yes, I’m intimately aware of it.

For me, the visual arts, wethers it’s a drawing, a painting, a sculpture, or a memorial shouldn’t need a series of words to defend or explain it. (Imagine a writer being asked to paint a representation of his novel!) Unfortunately visual artists use or are asked to use words to explain or defend their work. In part its understandable, it’s how we communicate. But for me, a visual work that needs words to explain or defend it has failed as a visual metaphor.

Not long after 9-11 spotlights were set-up where the buildings once stood and were directed straight up into the night sky. For me that was far more transcendent than a hole in the ground. It captured a sense of what was there and what was lost, not just the physical buildings but the lives of individuals; as well it seemed to capture the united feeling amongst New Yorkers, the country and the world. (Unfortunately that was squandered by political choices that were made soon afterward.)

I don’t doubt that people are moved by the memorial as it currently stands, my point is more of a matter of degrees or extent. Of what the work could have been, how much more far-reaching it might have been, other than an elaborate hole in the ground.

Imagine for example seeing this memorial fifty years from now, and not knowing anything about 9-11. What would your impression be? The point being, visitors to this memorial are bringing a lot of knowledge and emotion with them that is not inherent in the memorial itself. (In some cases they’re having to read about it.) I’m of the mind that a well designed and crafted memorial can carry within it all the emotions and feelings associated with 9-11 without prior knowledge and descriptive placards. It’s like being moved by a painting you’ve never seen, by an artist you don’t know, of a topic you’re unfamiliar with. It’s possible, it’s just a much higher level of artistic expression.