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In Memoriam, 2024
Everybody knows whenever rain appears, it’s really angel tears. This is the 20th Twin Towers Alliance Memorial Page. Every year, the focus has been on the bravery and horrifying loss of precious lives on 9/11/2001 — and on some of the countless ways people around the world have kept the promise to Never Forget. There are links at the bottom of the page to some of the best tributes we’ve come across. That is particularly true of Rabbi Gellman’s Yankee Stadium Prayer Vigil address. We have never let the mission to promote rebuilding the Twin Towers intrude on the dedicated memorial pages. But this year, we are going to shift the remembrance to how majestically the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center represented an entire world that was lost that day — a world that was beloved by the victims and all of us who were left behind. It is plain to see that the world we were left with has been unraveling ever since. The TTA concept for Phase Two of rebuilding the Trade Center has been incubating for a number of years and is now ready to complete. The image below, which was created in 2012, doesn’t reflect the height of the towers on our homepage, the placement of the antenna on the Freedom Tower, or today’s built-up skyline. But it powerfully conveys the belief that returning their profile to the skyline could change the world’s dismal trajectory.
Years ago, we changed “The Signatures” tab to “The Comments” because the individual comments are at the heart of the Twin Towers Alliance. A selection of some of the earliest comments captured the essence of the rebuilding movement (which began on 9/11/2001) and rotate at the top of the page. One boils it down perfectly: “Terrorism is a war of symbols. That is why the Towers were targeted, and that is why they must be rebuilt.” At face value, the words convey the organic spirit of the times that knew the United States and the world could not afford to buckle to terrorism. But while military recruiting numbers rose heroically, the flip-side message was also being broadcast: The natural fear that rebuilding the Towers would taunt the enemy and invite another attack. And politicians, instead of inspiring, took the low road at home. The many years of the rebuilding effort were full of political and media distortions. But terrorism is still a war of symbols. They are the universal language. They do not lie. Intelligence officials are now telling us that the danger of another “black swan” event is greater than at any time since 2001 and growing. Our people do not have to be victims. It is time for citizens to pull their heads out of the sand of misinformation and manipulation. We believe that finishing the job at Ground Zero is critical to the future of the Free World. We think that anyone who considers our proposal carefully will be surprised at how feasible and amazing it could be. Anyone who remembers the thrill of the comforting lights of the Twin Towers coming into view while riding north on the New Jersey Turnpike knows deep inside that the current World Trade Center doesn’t come close to sending the same message. It is cold comfort. But it is not finished. And we are not resigned…
“Dirge Without Music” — Edna St. Vincent Millay I am not resigned to the shutting away of loving hearts in the hard ground. Lovers and thinkers, into the earth with you. The answers quick and keen, the honest look, the laughter, the love, Down, down, down into the darkness of the grave Since 2005, we have included “Dirge Without Music” on our yearly memorial page because it conveys the enormous personal loss of September 11, 2001. At the Yankee Stadium Prayer Vigil on September 23rd, before the final death toll was known, Rabbi Marc Gellman put that grief into words this way: “On that day, six thousand people did not die. On that day, one person died six thousand times.“ This year we are going to add two videos to the permanent part of the yearly memorial page, because they are so evocative of what must never be forgotten. The first is a video that was created soon after 9/11 — so, unlike the many excellent digests that are compiled in the years that followed, it has a quality that is very much of the actual period. It was recorded to “Only Time” — a song released by Irish musician Enya the year before. According to Wikipedia, “Only Time” was released again as a radio remix in 2001 and Enya donated the earnings from the sale of that single to the Widows’ and Children’s Fund of the Uniformed Firefighters Association to help the families of firefighters in the aftermath of the attacks. We recommend listening to it until the music stops. The second video is the “mega-episode” version of the exceptional six-part National Geographic documentary: “9/11: The FDNY | 60 Minutes — 9/8/24 More FDNY members have died from World Trade Center illnesses than killed on 9/11 Selected Links from Earlier Memorial Pages Clydesdales’ Super Bowl Tribute * Click on the angel to play the Bacharach/David song which was actually Click here for the story behind the “Angel of Grief Weeping Over the Dismantled Altar of Life.” Click here for the transcript of the Prayer Vigil at Yankee Stadium on September 23, 2001. |
