Rick's Cafe Americain

In today’s NY Times Maureen Dowd wrote a critique of the 8 designs for the World Trade Center Memorial that gave words to a sentiment I have been feeling since the first drafts of such designs were released, and far more eloquently than I could express. These “memorials" seem more interested in helping us forget than in aiding us to remember. The ephemeral lights, reflecting ponds, and expansive gardens that inhabit the dynamic artist renderings of the proposals reflect better the attitude of a day spa, Japanese garden or modern art exhibit, not the painful reality of the almost 3,000 dead in the most costly attack to ever touch American soil.