9/11 Memorial goes back on its word, charges reservation fee

reply to post by samkent

WTC is private property and the memorial is to a terrorist event against privately owned buildings.
Hense they need non government funds to run the thing. I feel they over built the memorial. The symbolism is nice but far too expensive to maintain. But as usual they bit off more than they can chew.

That's the problem. It's not 100% private property. It's a Public/Private partnership as the Foundation so proudly notes in some of it's own material and most certainly as it's sold to Congress in the attempts to garner more federal and public funding. That is a theme running through virtually all cited sources. The need for more federal funding at all levels and ongoing into the indefinite future.

I have no problem with that and in fact, would like to see the Park Service outright take control of the site. Other Public/Private Partnerships exist on memorials with direct Park Service oversight and public accountability to the funding and use of it. It's a point the families make for wanting to know why it can't be done that way here. I must agree that I'd like to know the answer to that myself. As inefficient as Uncle can be on things? I've seen and been through the Gettysburg Monument and site several times as one example and felt they did an excellent job for what they had to accomplish and the funds they do it with.

To be specific here though, this is Foundation, Memorial/Museum and the Owners of the WTC property on the private side. The National Parks service (being solicited for $20 million annually as the sources indicate for a min.) The New Jersey/New York Port Authority, and City of New York on the public side. Funding to build it seems to have run about 60/40 as a thumbnail without doing math here and 60% on private with a large portion being donations and fundraising from the public.

It's very much a split deal and impossible to say clearly like the Statue of Liberty being Park Service and Federal vs. the Museum of Natural History being private in comparison. Like everything else, that issue is muddy and mixed.

Originally posted by Wrabbit2000
reply to post by CalibratedZeus

 

I have been there multiple times, and the part that truly sickens me about this story is the fact that in the temporary memorial/store they take donations, when you sign up to visit the memorial, they take donations, as you exit the memorial they also take donations. I have always given a couple dollars when I visit because the site and memorial are honestly beautiful and I want to do my little part to help maintain.

Thank you for your reply here. I'd like to ask you as someone who has been to this in it's nearly completed form?

Donation soliciting aside, what is the general feel and atmosphere? I'd read travel site reviews and a couple other similar anecdotal references which were all negative. One, extremely so. The overall theme was just extreme commercialization, if that's the right word. Not a Disney type, where everything just vibrates with "spend! buy me!" but a sense that everything about operating and design was penny wise but dollar poor with there never having been enough along the way?

Is it really that bad? I mentioned in the first page of my clarification material that I had no desire to ever go there and that's why. It seems by what I read, the experience would be really cheapened by that aspect?

A little confused by the reviews you read, might help to read one of them directly, but I will do my best to sum up my feelings on it and possibly clarify their thoughts.

The memorial right now is at its simplest form, you can walk around the ground level aspect where they have planted trees and put the two waterfalls in the footprints of the old towers. Even though it is in the middle of downtown Manhattan and a huge construction site, it just becomes strangely peaceful when you walk into the area. As a fan of simple but elegant memorials like the Vietnam wall, the waterfalls they put in with the names lining the outside is very well done in my opinion, and the size of them really can not be appreciated unless you are there. Overall I believe the outdoor area could not have been done any better.

As for there not being enough along the way, the main museum portion and all the underground areas of the memorial are still unfinished and have yet to be opened to the public. I can not imagine people thinking the outdoor area is not enough, but i guess if it is the case they need to wait for the rest of the areas to be opened. As I said before, there is only one way in and out of the memorial right now, and it is only say a 10 foot wide fenced in walkway that twists and turns around the construction site. The entire area is fenced in so it feels slightly enclosed right now, and the process of having to register in advance and go through a security screening to get in is a bit of a pain in the butt. When it first opened the line was actually pretty long, recently is has only taken me about 5 minutes to get through the check in and security, so it is not so bad.

If the registration charge and security screening and everything have you so upset, then just wait a year or two for them to open up the entire area between west and greenwich streets and you will be able to walk in and out of the memorial as you please from any direction, and once all the construction on the surrounding towers and PATH station is complete, it will be a magnificent area.

Originally posted by Wrabbit2000
Well, I never thought I'd have something to start a thread in here about but this just rubs my fur the WRONG way. They got hundreds upon HUNDREDS of millions of dollars to build this memorial to those who died that day. Whatever anyone thinks caused it, the deaths aren't much in question and this is about that.

Should they be charging? Well..Some may say yes, why not?? To that? I'll post the article and see how folks feel in a moment.

For anyone else interested in such things, here are a few photos I took when I visited the place last year so you can see what's there in the comfort of your own home and save having to cough up the money for admission yourself. As much as I respect this hallowed ground, I detest Bloomberg even more. If it isn't bad enough he's hiding his gun confiscation schemes behind the victims of Newtown, he's now milking the the 9/11 attack for as much cash as he can squeeze out of it. Don't get me started on his "you need government permission to decide how big a beverage container you can have" policies.

[Censored] you, Bloomberg, you self serving phony. Here's a few bucks that won't be going to your $300,000 per year office staff.







You see those tiny dots along the top edge in the background? Those are people, which should give you an idea on the size of the memorial, which shows the outline of the original footprints of the towers. Yes, they were really that big.

Originally posted by Wrabbit2000
The article goes on to show the $200,000 - $300,000+ the people running the Memorial Foundation are pulling in per year. Wow.. Nice work if you can get it .

Not to really make you nuts, but you have no indication that this is the individual Board members' only source of income. Which is to say that they could each have a day gig and sit on several boards each generating 5-6 figures.

As a fer instance...I Googled the first name on the list of the Board - Virginia S. Bauer

Ms. Virginia S. Bauer serves as the Chief Executive Officer of GTBM Inc. Link

And what is GTBM Inc?

GTBM, Inc. designs and develops software for the law enforcement agencies. The company provides Info-Corp, a system that provides real-time credential verification and identification check services. Additionally, it offers wireless-based law enforcement information software for the public safety departments. The company also enables police officers to access local, state, and federal criminal databases through Info-Corp application. Additionally, it offers e-ticketing turnkey, facial recognition system, and network support and maintenance solutions. GTBM, Inc. was founded in 1972 and is based in East Rutherford, New Jersey. Link

Now, to be fair, I don't know if she is a paid member of the 9/11 Board. And just to be impertinent, I will point out that this information comes from something called Bloomberg Business Week.

But it serves to illustrate my point. It's how the rich get richer.

reply to post by CalibratedZeus


The reviews I read were anecdotal and the same type you read on travel sites about 'worst experiences' at airports or Disney properties in terms of the overall tone. It's why I honestly didn't even bookmark them but made a mental note for the tone of some of what was out here about it.

One that stands out was a rather energetic rant about having stood waiting for them to open access on one of the days it's had public access and the way being late to allow people through security and inside was handled. Petty stuff ...but as was also noted in those? Petty stuff that probably shouldn't exist as issues with the enormous expenditures and enormous staff numbers justified specifically by saying they are to insure those issues didn't happen.

^^^ They could just as easily have been people who got into an argument with a Memorial/Museum staffer on some unrelated thing to hit the net and "show them a thing or two", as well. Which is why I didn't think quoting it was worth it in a thread or forum like this. Not when I figured people with direct, first person experience might be along to give their opinions of what they saw here.

In that? Thanks. Your contribution to the thread as well as the other side presented by at least one other post really are what makes the difference between a mere collection of comments by net users vs information that's valuable to consider and file away for perspective and context.

reply to post by GoodOlDave



I rarely let myself get spiritual about things publicly, least of all here....yet?

If people hold any belief to the Souls of the lost in catastrophic death being attached to the location their loss happened? Whatever else the human element has done to sully that location and memorial, your pictures show a place that appears appropriate to what occurred on that ground. A quiet, peaceful place of reflection with the water serving multiple purposes in that general sense of things. I'll leave that there since I know my beliefs are among a minority (Wiccan) but I had to mention it. The photos just caught my eye that way as being so right for the setting.

Now ..if only the human factor hadn't apparently gotten so ugly around creating it.

Originally posted by Carreau
reply to post by DaTroof

 

It happened 12 years ago. If you wanted to go see it for free, you had plenty of time to do so.

I usually ignore your asinine posts but this one was one of your better efforts. Even someone as ignorant as you must realize that family and friends of those killed at that site still go there and not just visited once?

I have been to the Oklahoma city memorial twice once in 09 then again in 2011.. at the OKC memorial they have crosses set up all around the fountains with the names of all the victims on them.. The children had smaller crosses

Both times i was there the same woman was sitting at the same small cross crying, I almost lost it when I saw her the second time.

Maybe because there is a lot of sick first responders, and the government need to fund their payouts somehow! Cheapskates!