Names

How to arrange the names on the WTC memorial. That's a serious quandry for those who are involved in the process. Fire and police officers want to be separately stated and recognized for being rescuers killed that day going into the buildings to assist those trapped.

Others want all the names randomly placed to show the chaos and violence done that day. Still others want ordered names according to companies they worked for, alphabetical, etc.

Some look to the Vietnam Veteran's Memorial for guidance, which listed all the military deaths chronologically - from the first year of US involvment in Vietnam to the last.

In the current plan, names would be dispersed randomly around the pools, with no other identifying distinction than a service insignia like a police shield or the firefighters' Maltese cross next to the names of uniformed emergency workers.

Besides the 2,749 people who died in the towers and the planes that crashed into them, the names would include those who died at the Pentagon, aboard United Airlines Flight 93 and in the 1993 attack on the trade center. Visitors looking for specific names would be guided by memorial staff members, a printed directory or a computerized registry.

"The haphazard brutality of the attacks is reflected in the arrangement of names," Michael Arad, the architect of the memorial, explained in 2004, "and no attempt is made to impose order upon this suffering." That included an A-to-Z hierarchy.

There is no solution that will be acceptable to all. And once again, that shows just how difficult the rebuilding and memorialization process is.

Technorati: World Trade Center, WTC, Pataki, LMDC, urban policy, Freedom Tower, IFC, International Freedom Center, spitzer, silverstein.