9/11 Museum Gift Shop At Ground Zero - Good Idea or Insensitive?

ATS ... 9/11 Museum Gift Shop in NYC at Ground Zero ... Is it a good idea for bringing in revenue to keep up the museum, or is it insensitive and it needs to go away?

9/11 Museum Gift Shop at Ground Zero

A gift shop in the National Sept. 11 Memorial & Museum in New York City has angered some family members and others, who say it cheapens the tragedy of what happened that day.

"To me, it’s the crassest, most insensitive thing to have a commercial enterprise at the place where my son died," Diane Horning told the New York Post. She and her husband, Kurt, never received the remains of their 26-year-old son Matthew, who died in the attack.

About 8,000 unidentified human remains are stored at the museum, making it a burial crypt of the missing.

"Here is essentially our tomb of the unknown. To sell baubles I find quite shocking and repugnant," she told the Post. Horning said she also objects to a cafe at the museum.

Two sides to this ...

- The 9/11 site IS a burial crypt. There are 8,000 human remains ... not 8,000 bodies but 8,000 body parts ... so people are buried there. People died in a large number there. People were maimed and traumatized there. So I can see why families would not want a gift shop at the spot where their family member was murdered. I can see how they'd be upset with T-shirts and post cards etc.

HOWEVER

- Arlington Cemetery is also a burial place and it has a gift shop. It's small. It's tastefully incorporated in the main building that has the tickets and the museum artifacts. Places like Gettysburg where tens of thousands died have gift shops. Valley Forge as well. Memorial places. All gift shops off to the side and not on the actual grounds where the dead are ... or where they died. And all tasteful with educational books and things like that. So I can see how these gift shops can be done tastefully and how they can help educate people about what happened in those places ... all the while bringing in revenue to help keep the museum going.

So what do you think? Should the 9/11 Museum Gift Shop be closed down because it's upsetting and inappropriate? Or is the gift shop appropriate because it's small and not part of the burial chamber, and it's educational and needed to fund the museum? How much say should the families of those buried there have in the decision?

I can see both sides of this. I have no opinion one way or the other.

a reply to: FlyersFan

A gift shop there can go wrong pretty fast. If they start to carry insensitive or irrelevant items, if they start to have the wrong kind of advertising, what type of displays are used. As you said, it's also a tomb. I wanted to set up a popcorn concession in Lincoln's Tomb but got some strange stares from the guards.

how about the darkness hoodie?
"in darkness there is light"
if one subscribed to the general conspiracy plot
one might think that a rather luciferian comment

originally posted by: Aleister
A gift shop there can go wrong pretty fast.

I'm thinking a compromise could be to have a few family members on the gift shop board so they can approve what is sold. Educational books and educational historical videos ... things like that should be okay. If they could have a say in what was sold there, perhaps they'd be more inclined to accept it.

Why doesnt larry silverstien pay for the museum into perpetuity for the billions he made off the attack?
911 mugs?
911 beer cozies?
911 hats?
On the burial site?
Thats vulgar

I think it is a horrible idea. For anyone to make a profit or even be asked to pay to do anything on that site is ridiculous. It is not a site I would ever want to have a piece of tourist memorabilia from. Seems very sick to me.

Would YOU visit a graveyard that had a trinkets stall...?? I mean, what the hell would they sell? in fact it doesn't matter what they sell, it's someone cashing in on the deaths of over 3000 human beings.
i'm pretty sure even 1 cent of the profit wont find it's way to the families of the loved ones who perished on 9/11
This is a grotesque idea.

As a resident of the New York City suburbs everyone who went through that day has zero degrees of separation in regards knowing someone or being related to someone who died that day. For me it was a high school classmate that worked are Cantor Fitzgerald.

I have come to see two main camps for the site. Those that see it as 'hallowed ground' and wished nothing to ever be built there, no buildings, just two holes in the ground for the tower footprints. The others, which I count myself among, wanted the towers rebuilt as they were being that they were an iconic piece of the skyline and would show that we stood up to those who tried to terrorize us that day. Instead we ended up with the compromise Freedom Tower.

I am personally tired with the constant morbidity at the site, people do not seem to want to move past the day's tragic events and use every minor instance to claim injury against the memories of the victims.

A gift shop? Big deal. They charge to get into the museum as it is ($24, which is obscene) and the whole things was a ghastly over budget project.

a reply to: FlyersFan

Don't like it, should be an area that is open with benches and lots of trees for people and families to sit and reflect on what happened or simply enjoy the company of each other...

Benghazi occured on 9-11 too. 2012

To date, a few arrests have been made (none by the FBI).[citation needed] As of May 2014, no one has yet been prosecuted.

Are we celebrating the deaths accomplished on a certain day, or are we celebrating the fact that the perps got away with it?

The memorial site should be called NORAD's complacency.

originally posted by: Vasa Croe
For anyone to make a profit or even be asked to pay to do anything on that site is ridiculous.

I don't know if there is any profit or if it all goes to museum maintenance.

Why doesn't the American Government pay for the maintenance?

I mean what is the point of this place? Tourist attraction? Somewhere to go and hate muslims and get angry?

It seems a bit soon to have a museum. There is enough info on the net about 911.

Does anyone know if they have a Museum and gift shop in Galveston to commemorate the 6000-12000 that died in 1900 ?
Here's a list of Tragedies that have befell the US. Could someone give me a list of, or point me in the direction of all these gift shops. I fancy buying some Tat to show to my Neighbours and to prove that i have been there.
List of United states Disasters and possible Gift shops

a reply to: FlyersFan

Nothing like making money on the backs of victims whose last hour of their lives was spent being terrified, feeling hopeless, and dying a horrific death. It seems like Greed has trumped respect in this case.