A memorial of greed?

I recently went to New York to see a few baseball games and some other attractions, one of which was the site of the World Trade Center. After visiting the remains I was left with an unusual feeling of uneasiness. When you go towards the WTC, you find an area fenced off due to construction, which is surrounded by people selling food, jewelry, shirts, and other tourist stuff.

After walking around the area from the north side to the south side of where the buildings were, there is a PATH train station along with an information center just outside. At the information center you can find a brochure on the WTC visitor center and a separate brochure on the “National September 11 Memorial and Museum at the World Trade Center.”

This brochure displays a picture of the finished construction project and gives a small description of what the whole thing will consist of; a museum and a memorial. The memorial portion will have the names of all of the victims inscribed on the edge of two separate 30 foot waterfall areas surrounding the base of the WTC buildings. On the backside of the brochure there is an area that lays out how you can donate to help construct this building/memorial. With each donation you receive something back; a certificate, a lapel pin, or a membership card/cobblestone.

This whole project is being projected to cost $500 million which would make it one of the most expensive memorials in history. I find this to be an interesting conundrum. The original construction of the WTC Twin Towers was approximately $900 million.

Let me throw out some other figures. The following are the approximate total costs (or projected costs) that it took to build these buildings:

The Pentagon: $83 million – construction began in 1941

The White House: $232,371 – construction began in 1792 (cost is equivalent to $2.4 million in 2005 dollars)

Ronald Reagan Building: $768 million – construction began in 1990

Sears Tower: $150 million – construction began in 1970 (cost is equivalent to $950 million in 2005 dollars)

US Embassy in Iraq: roughly $800 million

New Yankee Stadium: $1.3 billion (estimated cost)

Now I could argue many things here. I could ask why all this money is being spent on certain buildings and not others (many people would question the amount of money that is going towards the new Yankee Stadium). But this is not what I am going to do.

Instead I like to question the intentions behind the building of the WTC memorial and museum. When I was walking past all those street vendors I was a little disgusted with them, seeing as how the area is a sort of sacred site since the buildings collapsed. But then I began to wonder if the street vendors were really any different than the people that were constructing and building the memorial and museum.

While all of the buildings above are/were not publicly funded, it is odd that the construction of them is placed in the hands of people who have little or no regard for the people that the buildings are being constructed for. What I mean is that the $500 million (or more realistically $600 – $800) that will go toward building the WTC memorial will be constructed and overseen by a group of people who may not be the most interested in the construction of this project. The businessmen that oversee projects of this nature don’t often make things just out of the good of their heart. They want a profit out of it. That is what capitalism is all about.

What I am wondering is this: if this project is going to be billed as the official memorial for September 11 and the WTC, someone will eventually be making money on this. Contractors must get paid. Laborers must earn their pay. But in the end of the day, once all of the construction is through, I worry that money will be pouring into this memorial like people into grand central station and no one will be willing to step up and say, hey, where is this money going, and where should this money really be going.

So while I hope that the contractors and businessmen that are running the show behind the WTC memorial and museum construction are not trying to rob anyone of excess money, I realize that it is entirely possible that these same people are nothing more than the people selling to tourists outside of the construction zone. Everyone is trying to make a dollar in one way or another; some make no effort to hide their desires, while others convince you that you have something to gain out of giving to them, but either way, money is the object of desire.

Explore posts in the same categories: Random Thoughts, Travel

Tags: 9/11, National September 11 Memorial and Museum, New York, Pentagon, Ronald Reagan Building, Sears Tower, September 11, US Embassy, White House, World Trade Center, WTC, Yankee Stadium

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