Sacred Ground

I am an eyewitness to the death of World Trade Tower One. From my home in Soho, I saw in an instant the whole top of the tower begin to collapse in upon itself. As if in slow motion, it pancaked downward, the solid shape vanishing in a rising plume of black and yellow dust.

That image has returned to me again and again, both when I'm awake and when asleep. In fact, there have been an overwhelming number of images crowding in my psyche.

Ruins of the World Trade Center

One, in particular, remains with me: the ruins of the towers reaching to the sky like charred skeletal fingers. While horrific, it has a kind of terrible beauty. It contains the essence of the towers' design--those distinctive ribs that defined the upward thrusting energy of the buildings as they rose to such seemingly impossible heights. It also contains the signature of their destruction--those ribs now charred and twisted set against the emptiness of the sky.

There has been talk of rebuilding, of cleaning up and clearing away the rubble and removing what is now known as "the pile"--the frightening, chaotic, almost incomprehensible mountain of tangled building materials. But this is not just the massive wreckage of fallen buildings, it is also a burial ground. So many people died here that didn't know they were on a battlefield. So while it is important to clear the twisted steel and remove the toxic remains of pcps, dioxins, asbestos, and plastic and get down and finally put out the fires that still burn and send choking smoke into our eyes and noses, it is also crucial to pay honor to the memory of those who died and to create a vital memorial for those who need to come and bear witness at this tragic place.

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