The Lower Manhattan 9/11 display featuring two beams of light honoring those slaughtered in the 2001 terror attacks on the Twin Towers, has been canceled. This iconic event will be “replaced” by city buildings lighting up in blue, while a nonprofit, The Tunnel to Towers Foundation, announced its own separate Lower Manhattan ceremony. They’ll have select family members of 9/11 victims reading the names of their loved ones.
The annual “Tribute in Light” display requires a large crew to pull off, the 9/11 Memorial and Museum said on its website, posing health risks this year that “were far too great.” This decision follows their call to scrap the in-person reading of the 9/11 victims’ names at the annual Ground Zero ceremony.
Never mind that proper preparation including masks and social distancing could be easily managed during the readings, and huge numbers of construction workers have been working all over NYC for months with no mass COVID outbreaks.
So without so much as a hint of irony, two very moving ceremonies commemorating the lives of almost 3,000 innocents killed by terrorists, along with the hundreds of courageous, selfless firefighters and police officers who raced into the dual infernos, has been scrubbed because of health risks. The tens of thousands who escaped those burning towers, can and probably do, thank God that, on 9/11, cops and firemen put their own personal well-being last.
Apparently a “Never forget” date along with the resilient acts of bravery that went along with it, is the latest thing to be scrubbed from this year’s American History lesson.
The moral of the story is you don’t need vandals to tear down or deface memorials. Some timid, fearful bureaucrats hiding behind the 9/11 Memorial Museum website can be just as destructive.
wpDiscuz
