President Peter Gorman's statement regarding listing of names at WTC Memorial

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Who are they, why does it matter?

The World Trade Center Memorial is being built to remember and honor the 2, 979 people who died in two terrorist attacks on our country. Unlike most memorials, it is being built on sacred ground, where the attacks actually occurred. Additionally, the memorial site is the final resting place of 1,151 human beings whose families received no bodily remains for a proper burial. Mayor Bloomberg’s memorial plan strips those who died of their essential human qualities and renders each individual nothing more than a place marker in a statistic.

We have launched this site because your voice is not being heard. For 500 million dollars--federal tax dollars, private donations and consumer-supported corporate donations--we deserve a memorial that is historically meaningful. We deserve a memorial that does not strip victims of all identity. A memorial in name only is no memorial at all

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What's in a name?   More than the letters

Friday, March 9th, 2007
By Anthony Gardner

Hundreds of bones unearthed at Ground Zero since October extend the echo of9/11's brutality.

During that same period, Mayor Bloomberg, by fiat, chose the memorial plan that lists only the names of the dead, reducing the 9/11 victims to mere letters and stripping them of any human condition connected to their memory.

Insisting that he will not tell us what to think, the mayor hurls his
elective office behind an iron-fisted effort to tell us what not to think.

Fear that some victims may evoke greater pity than others leads the mayor to impose grief of a lowest common denominator. No one will be equipped with the context that might enable them to learn from history and mourn any genuinely distinct individual among 2,979 slaughtered innocents. Those whose skin and bones were blasted over 16 acres are to be rendered indistinguishable.

Military and municipal employees are stripped of rank. The flight attendant who fought to warn the world is left anonymous. That one in four New York dead worked for one firm is withheld. Three 11-year-olds must eternally cry for attention, hidden among thousands of adults. The despair of the Hanson family, which lost a son and daughter-in-law who died along with their 2-year-old toddler, is paved over. No artifacts, no mention of Sept. 11, 2001. No American flag. No history. Just a visitor center that bisects and obstructs the view millions will journey to see. And in its shadow, two pools in a city park.

The majority of 9/11 families and municipal unions, with members of the memorial's board, long ago identified decorous means to display name, rank, affiliation and age, in honor of the victims and as history dictates.

Americans did not fear the truth on 9/11. Bloomberg must give it to them now, rather than insisting that the names be scattered like debris.

Gov. Spitzer recently retreated from his remarks on the need for a "public discussion" on how the names should be listed. The governor must realize what is at stake, and do what is best for the American people. It's not too late for Bloomberg to do the same.

Gardner lost his brother Harvey Joseph Gardner 3rd on 9/11. Roy lost her brother, FDNY Capt. Billy Burke. Gardner and Roy are the organizers of savethe911memorial.com.

February 21,  2007
Spitzer Makes Switch Official:
He Supports Freedom Tower
By NICHOLAS CONFESSORE

Gov. Eliot Spitzer announced yesterday that he supported going ahead with construction of the Freedom Tower at ground zero, making official his change of mind about a project that he once called a white elephant.
 
Mr. Spitzer's remarks - made with no great enthusiasm - came at a news conference downtown with Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and Gov. Jon S.
Corzine of New Jersey. Despite the setting for his remarks, Mr. Spitzer said he "would not be in the business of having a press conference every time a brick is added to the foundation or a column goes up."
 
That was an apparent swipe at the public relations approach to ground zero under his predecessor, Gov. George E. Pataki. Rebuilding has moved only in fits and starts during the last several years, with most visible activity until recently accompanied by news conferences and photo opportunities.
 
David M. Catalfamo, a spokesman for Mr. Pataki, responded later: "I'm not sure if it was one too many or one too few press conferences. What I do know is that today's announcement is a reaffirmation of the vision advanced by Governor Pataki and a sign that the progress at the site will continue unabated."
 
The $3 billion Freedom Tower, the tallest and most symbolic of the five towers in the plan, has been widely criticized for its size, expense and design, as well as its failure to interest nongovernment tenants. Mr.
Spitzer was critical of it during his campaign for governor, and when he took office he put the 1,776-foot building under review.
 
Last week, however, city, state, and Port Authority officials indicated that Mr. Spitzer had changed his mind, encouraged by the improving real estate market and apparent interest by some private investors in buying the Freedom Tower.
 
Yesterday, Mr. Spitzer said that while he had felt obligated to criticize aspects of the project he disliked, it was time to move on.
 
"This should not be interpreted to mean that this is the project I would have designed at its initiation," he added. "But where we are today, this is clearly the best and the wisest alternative."
 
Like Mr. Spitzer, Mr. Corzine and Mr. Bloomberg appeared more relieved than elated, a sign of how tumultuous the rebuilding effort has been since the Sept. 11 attacks.
 
"Maybe we would have done it differently if you could roll it all the way back to another day, but we live in the world we live in," Mr. Corzine said.
 
All three men deflected criticism of the tower's current design, saying it struck a necessary balance between security and aesthetics.
 
"I've said to Ray Kelly, our police chief, 'Would you let your kids work in this building?' " Mr. Bloomberg said; the Police Department had insisted on plan revisions to make the tower safer. "That's the standard that we have to build to. And he's looked me in the eye more than once and said, 'Yes.' "
 
After Mr. Bloomberg left for another event, Mr. Spitzer took more questions and seemed to wade into the controversy over the arrangement of the names of the dead at the 9/11 memorial. While the mayor, as chairman of the memorial foundation, contends that the matter has been settled, some families of the victims are not satisfied.
 
Mr. Spitzer said there was still room for discussion. "It is something that we will try to work through at the right time and the right place and get to a resolution that satisfies everybody," he said.

TIN-EARED MIKE AGAIN IS GRATING ON HIS CITY By STEVE DUNLEAVY March 10, 2007 -- THERE are many things I don't understand. Some of them, per haps with the assistance of a sturdy bar rail, I may start to figure out.   But should I live a thousand sober years, I'll never comprehend what compelled Mayor Mike Bloomberg to go to Miami while eight children lay dead from a Bronx fire.   His explanation: "I was down in Florida with the mayor of Florida [sic]. He is a great mayor on renewable-energy buildings, ecologically sound buildings. In mass transit they've done some innovative things."   Please tell me you're kidding, Mike.   I'm reluctant to join a conga line of Bloomberg bashers. With the exception of treating cops and firefighters like indentured servants, he has put the city financially in pretty good shape.   But the Miami escape? Unbelievable. Could you imagine an Ed Koch or a Rudy Giuliani getting on a plane when the city is crying?   "I had a responsibility," said the mayor. No truer words were ever spoken. Only one thing, Mike. That responsibility was in The Bronx.   I know the rest of the city needs the mayor's attention. I know the city has to plan for the future. I even know (because the mayor said so) Hizzoner was also raising money for the World Trade Center memorial and met with 9/11 families down in Florida.   But I also know that Mayor Mike's song of the South is so far out of tune it makes fingers scraping on a blackboard sound like a symphony.   Bloomberg's a different kind of guy. I recall after being sworn in, he didn't attend the first five funerals of 9/11 firefighters. Disgraceful, but it was early and he had a lot to learn.   But five years has not attuned the mayor's tin ear to the cries of his people.   steve.dunleavy@nypost.com