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FEATURES
19 The Architecture of Memory
Post-September 11, memorials at the
World Trade Center and Pentagon
respectively symbolize the gaping pit
where international commerce formerly
towered, and the charred base of the military
establishment. But Shanksville, where Flight 93
crash-landed, has only a naked field. How
will that field look to future generations?
BY JESSE HICKS

26 Slouching Toward Utopia

Marketing, enterprise, faith and folly in
the United States'most (in)famous
planned communities
BY GREG PRESTO

30 Art Collection, lnc.

For more than a century, steel molded
Pittsburgh's cultural framework. But the
recent past has seen the city fending off
bankruptcy, blight and brain drain. The Next
American Cltydiscusses the history that once
defined Pittsburgh, and the questions
nearly every rust belt city faces
BY MATTHEW NEWTON
 AREHITEETURE
I
SIX.PLUS YEARS AFTER SEPTEMBER II, 2OOI, THE MEMORIALS IN NEW YORK
ANO WASHINGTON ARE FINALLY TAKING SHAPE. BUT SHANKSVILLE, I{HERE FLIGHT
93 CRASH-LANDED IN RURAL PENNSYLVANIA, IS ONLY A NAKEO FIELO.
HOT{ T{ILL THAT FIELO LOOK TO FUTURE GENERATIONS?

0N THE S0UTI{ERN TIP 0F MANHATTAN, L6 acres remain gaping, six years after September 1,1,.
Construction cranes rise out of the hole, diligently assembling a new skyline. Developers
say that by 2012, at a cost of $3 billion, a complex of office buildings will again scrape the
sky. Its centerpiece, the would-be-iconic Freedom Tower, will rise tJ76 feet, making it the
world's tallest office building. From its apex will rise an illuminated spire, echoing the Statue
of Libert¡ the intense beam of light reaching over a thousand feet into the heavens. Below,
at street level, the names of the dead will be inscribed. lN WASHINGT0I{, 8.C., freshly poured
concrete awaits a collection of l-84 memorial benches, each overhanging a lit reflecting pool
and inscribed to a victim of the attack. By Sept. 2008, according to plan, the benches will be
arrayed in order of the victims' ages, from 3 to71,, beneath a protective canopy of maple tress.
lN RURAL SHANKSVILLE, PENNSYLVANIA, the wind comes in low and constant over the ñeld of
a reclaimed strip mine. Above the site loom two dragline excavators. Enormous crane-like
machines, this terrain belongs to them: A place of digging, stripping bare,only now recovering
its barest protections. They stand several stories high, weigh 2,000 tons; their scale dwarfs
anything in the human landscape. But they have done their excavating, unearthed enough. Now
they stand unmoving, rusting skeletons reaching into the sky. From an outstretched boom some
200 feet in the air blows an American flag. Here at Shanksville lies a blank field and a story. >)

BY JESSE HICKS
lÃllnter 200?, No. 11 t9
AUGUST 4, 2OO2t A youngster looks at angel f¡gures placed
at the edge of the field near Shanksvillle. Pennsylvan¡a.
where United Flight 93 crashed on Sept. il.2001.
A SCARLESS FIELÍI
Six years ago, passengers on United Flight 93 realized theil role in a suicide
plot and decided to rush the cockpit. A struggle for control ensued; the
plane came low over tlìe ridge now behind us, its wings rocking. It passed so
that one witness clai¡ned, "You could probably count
lorv
- on its side -
the rivets." It struck the glound at 563 miles an hour: snroke rose high into
the heave¡rs, a black exhalation from the earth. Nearby photogl'¿¡pher Val
McClatchey captured the cloud's rise over an archetypal red barn, seconds
aftel irnpact, and later titled it, "The End of Serenity." The Boeing 757 left
a crater 115 feet rvide and 10 to 12 feet deep. No one survived.
These facts, this story, bring thousands to Shanksville every year. Many
expect to see something bigger, somethinggreater. Sornething nronumental.
point
Insteacl, the community volunteers
- the Flight 93 Ambassadors -
to an American flag mounted on a fence about 500 yards au'ay, just inside
the tlee line:T-hat's n,here it happer¡¿rl. That's where the plane came dowtr'
Sacred ground. See how the hemlocks ale burned?
But nature has reclaimed her dominion; beyond the scorched tlees
there is no cratel', no obvious, comforting scar in the land. Crime scene
investigators replaced the contarninated topsoil, and time has done the
rest. Nature heals. Nature folgets. Nature is inclifferent.
at least so we tell ourselves. We
Human beings. howevel'. are not
- or
like to believe that we recognize and accouttt all suffering, that we lìonor
heloism. We like to believe that hur¡an nlemory does trot yield so easily
to the wearing force of tinre. We like to believe we can stare long enough
at those faras,a1, trees and, yes, see u'here the burning jet fuel left its r¡at'k
20
- that we can lead the ash and knorv its rneaning.
Here lies the problenr: Absent the obvious symbolism of the World
gaping pit where international
Trade Center or the Pentagon sites
- the
cornmerce forrÌ1erly torvered;the charrecl base of the military establishment
has only a nake clñeld,tabula tasa. "A comnron ñeld one day.
-A Shanksville
fielcl of honor forever," says the Flight 93 National Memorial Mission
Statement. But how will that field look to the future?
Remembrance takes many forms; melnory is a process of constant
- oflikethat process' Here, private
renerval, not an end product. Shanksville the World Trade Center
and the Pentagon stands at the vanguard
-
grief becomes public, shared. History takes shape as we, together, decide
horv rve will l'emember; what we rvill emphasize, rvhat rve rvill discard
-
horv we will tlle questiorl
see ourselves through the lens of mernory. This is
of all cornmemoration, public or plivate, personal ol nalional: What will
we choose to salvage from the wreck of time, a¡rd what rvill rve let go?
MEMORY IIR MEMORAB¡LIA?
The Flight 93 Temporary Memorial, its name admitting the impossibility of
etel'nal remembrance. does not aint for the monumental. Its tributes have
a more human scale: A 4O-foot (in recognition of the 40 passengers) length
of chain-link fence stands on the ridge ovellooking the clash site' Here.
as at Oklahor¡ra Cit),, Colurnbine and the Vietnam Veteran's Memorial.
thousands of visitors leave their orvtr mcmorial offelings.
Such open commemoration bears ovelrvhelnling fruits. A large rvooden
www.americancity.org
 ;Ë¿ies¿
{-i.tT:&i
closs clorninates one sicle: nealb¡,, a plastic binder holcls a hanclwritten copy of
FOR THOSE THREE, PERHAPS II OR
Book of Wisclonr, Chaptcr 3 ("But the souls of the just are in the hancl ol Gocl.
ancl the tolment of dcath shall not touch thenr"), alongside the Prayer of St.
I2 YEARS OLB ON SEPT. II, 2OOI,
Francis of Assisi ("O Divine Master. glant that I nray not so much seek to be THE ANSWER TO THE OUESTION OF
consoled as to co¡rsole: to be unclel'stoocl as to understancll to l¡e lovecl as 1o
*TOO SOON' WAS, IN FACT, *TOO LATE.'
love"). An oblong stone. painted black ancl inscribecl. "We lemember 5000+
victims." shares ground rvith a purple My Little Pony ancl a plastic Pooh Bear'. forget, the bumper stickel's. T-shirts, and nlagnets wat'tì tts ad infinitun-t
Dozens of baseball caps hang fronr the fence. some personalizecl ancl others I have a pen rvhich reads. "We Will Not Forget." follorved by "Texaco
only logos: The Anaheirn Angels. UCLA. VFW. Personalized license plates:
-Xpress Lube" ancl the business adcìress.
FREEDOM and USA4ME. A laminated story of "-I'he -Iì'adgety of 91 1," b¡, It seems strange. this collusion of grief and consurnerism, but "NeveL
eighth gracler Sarah Marie Re1,¡e1¿r. Stylized f'lags of the Pentagon and Tñin Forget" has its comfort. It illustrâtes Eclwald Linenthal's cottcept of
'lbrvels. American fìags. A stuffecl lion. White plastic crosses. "venelative consunìption." September il nle morabilia, says the professor'
One homemade plaque leacls, "For our herocs of 9-11-01. Never forget of history ancl leligious studies at Incliana University Bloomington.
thern lest we lre attacked again. "lest." becomes both a sacled lelic and commercial cornmoclitlr The "Never
- Bob ancl Cheryl Hargest." That
stlangely archaic. ntakes remembrance an act uot just of preserving. but Forget" headband offers a way to expless soliclality rvith the victims
of constant vigilance. We rnust stand guald against fot'gettingl Santayana's through the evcryday transactions of capitalist societ¡,.
over-quoted maxinr about thosc rvho cannot remeurber the past being But hou,does the litany against folgetting ntake rneaning ofSeptember
doomed to repeat it Il? As an affìrrnation of American values, "Never Forget" em¡rhasizes
- or having it repeated against them.
Perha¡rs that "lest" alrests our moulning process at tlìe most basic levcl: capitalism and national unity. But otheru,ise it falls flat; those po¡t-cttlture
"Neve r Folget." You'r,e seen this slogan. on l'-shilts. refrigeratol magnets, effluvia fail to aclvise us horv to remcmber.
Ø
rvall hangings, lapel pins, mousepads. Perhaps you've seen the iconic In the immecliate aftern]ath of traged1,, such an uncontplicated lesponse
c
o to\\,ers. superinrposed with an American fìag. encircled by a pentagon. strikes us as appropliale. On the Penn State caurpus this April. follorving tlte
C
,
a
Maybe you've noticed the oval. European-style bumper stickel reading stuclent shooting at Virginia Tcch, "We Remember 4/l6107" T-shilts appealed
C)
Ø
"9/ll" and "Never Forget." And maybe )¡ou've seen the more ominous in a nratter of hours. simple declalations of empathlt "lt's alntost as if in the
expression. "Nevel'Forget, Never Folgive." We nrust rer¡renrber to never early days there's not much else to sa¡'." ¡s Linenthal puts it. Yet seeing lhose

Winter 200?, No. l?

 WHAT CAN A MEMOR¡AL ACCOMPLISH,
BEYfIND TRIGEERINE MEMORIES OF
THE EVENT ITSELF?
same shirts six months late¡ worn with seemingly no more thought to their
message than to the average Abercrombie and Fitch polo, gives one pause.
What exactly do these casual commemorators wish to remember?
I put the question to James M. Kristan, who claims to have the largest
private collection of September 11 memorabilia in the world. "My collection
is a whole story in itself," he says. "It's indescribable. I've got at least 1,500
square feet of stuff laid out. I had to get â warehouse donated." Kristan's
documentary Moving On from 9/11, details his struggle with post-traumatic
stress syndrome following the attacks. He eventually made pilgrimages to
all three memorial sites; I met him in Shanksville, where his sleeveless shirt
revealed a shoulder-wide tattoo of the iconic towers, with the legend, "Never
Forget 9-11-01." He'd driven 10 hours, straight from outside Grand Rapids,
and would drive back that same afternoon. He'd brought DVD copies of his
documentary which he described as his gift to the families.
I asked Kristan what we should learn from six years'perspective. "I don't
know. I'd need a little time to ponder that." It seems important to note that
after six years he and we still need a little time to ponder, to reflect.
- -
Kristan later answered: "The most important thing about 9/11 is: Never
forget that horrible day. Never forget those heroes and everybody we lost, the
innocent victims to the senseless cowards the terrorists." The passage of time
brings distance but not perspective or clarity; we can only, it seems, "Never
Forget." The process of commemoration stumbles after its first step.
SELECTIVE MEMORIES
Increasingly, we demand this kind of "instant memorialization," as Don
Stastny calls it, in which not-forgetting becomes the central duty. Stastny,
architect and adviser to the Flight 93 Memorial International Design
Competition, notes how in places such as Oklahoma City, Columbine
and Virginia Tech, temporary memorials formed almost immediately.
Permanent memorial designs appeared mere days later, often by the
hundreds, as concerned citizens made themselves heard.
Yet in that rush to remember, Linenthal notes, "You're doing it so soon
that it's the first generation's take on the meaning of what happened, how that
meaning should be represented, what should be remembered, what should be
forgotten, what can't be said that maybe could be said a hundred years later."
Those permanent memorials by their nature stand for decades, and as first
drafts of collective memory will have their blind spots, their telling lacunae.
What might we be able to say about September 11 that we cannot say
now? What might we learn if afforded the time and space perhaps
most importantly, the desire
- and
to reflect? To offer but one example, Tom
-
Junod's Esquire article, "The Falling Man," details his quest to find the
subject of one iconic September 11 photo. As Junod describes the man, "ln
the picture, he departs from this earth like an arrow. Although he has not
chosen his fate, he appears to have, in his last instants of life, embraced
it. [...] His black high-tops are still on his feet. In all the other pictures,
the people who did what he did jumped appear to be struggling
- who -
against horrific discrepancies of scale. They are made puny by the backdrop
of the towers, which loom like colossi, and then by the event itself." Global
tragedy has framed, not d\¡/arfed, this man's decision.
As Junod discovers, the photo's haunting intimacy
- capturingproved
the choice
of horrible, purposeful death over horrible, arbitrary death too
-
much for many viewers. Newspapers received angry letters from subscribers;
many press outlets self-censored the photo. Just as filmmakers had digitally
removed the twin towers from movies released soon after September 11,
many editors chose to erase the Falling Man from our national memory.
Describing his ideal memorial, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani
said, "Those who visit should be able to relive the experience in a way
22
that does justice to the enormity of the events." Such reliving would,
presumably, include the Falling Man; as cultural critic Slavoj Zizek says,
"The true choice apropos of historical trauma is not the one between
remembering and forgetting them: Traumas \¡/e are not able or ready to
remember haunt us all the more forcefully. We should therefore accept the
paradox that, in order to really forget an event, we must first summon up
the strength to remember it properly."
Remembrance, then, demands both strength and humility in the face
of enormous events. Even though, as Wyatt Mason points out, "The
destruction of the World Trade Center is the most exhaustively imaged
disaster in human histor¡" but the proliferation of images does little
to further our comprehension. We have not yet exhausted the possible
narratives, the stories we use to make sense.
The opposite, in fact; we continue to tell stories about that day. In New
York City, a group named StoryCorps has allied with the World Trade Center
Memorial Museum in an effort to record at least one oral history for every
life lost on September 11. Those stories,2,973 of them, offer a different kind
of memorial; they offer us voices preserved as though in ambel confronting
the simplest and most profound questions: "Can you tell me the story of what
happened to you on September l1th, 2001?" "What was your first thought
when you realized what was happening?" And of course, "What do you want
people in the future to know about what happened on 9/11?" None of these
questions promise simple answers, nor should they. Instead, they hope to
speak to human experience in a wây stone monuments, perhaps, cannot.
So often our speech stumbles when trying to comprehend September 11
as Norman Mailer puts it, "We speak in simples as experience approaches
-
the enormous." We speak in simples, grasping at archetypes: The planes, the
towers. the terrorists. The heroes. The victims. Even our shorthand reduces
the enormous to the vaguely comprehensible: The events, the attacks, the
tragedy or simply the date, 9/11. We speak of a mythical pre-9/11 world,
-
as though we are all the Falling Man, coloring our present with postlapsarian
menace. The Falling Man, despite our existential horror of him, is part of the
story. A story that continues to unfold.
FIIREBODINGS OF OZYMANDIAS
If we cannot say what that story means to us, we can say even less about
what it may mean for generations to come. "A field of honor forever"
rings with admirable hope, but memory's half-life guarantees nothing lasts
forever. Our memorials may outlive us, may outlive the people we know,
but they may also outlive their meanitrg. We should acknowledge that our
plastic 9/11 pens may outlast their message.
As Stastny puts it, "Twenty years from now, when a new generation
comes to look at this, they may have absolutely no recognition of who the
people were, or what the real meaning of this place is. We ask our jurors
to look for designs that will still have validity, because they may bring
a certain point home." Call it the "Ozymandias" criterion, in honor of
Shelley's famous sonnet on the fleeting nature of life and art: Permanent
memorials must carry their own meanings forward to generations who
have no direct experience on which to build their own stories.
In the story of Shanksville and Flight 93, I've already seen one memorial
fail the "Ozymandias" test: Paul Greengrass's United 93. On a Saturday
afternoon, I waited in line at the local Blockbuster. In front of me stood
three young men in cargo shorts, striped polo shirts and backwards baseball
caps. One of them leaned forward and asked the cashier, "Hey bro, is this
a good movie?" He turned the DVD case around: United 93.
"Uhm, well, it's about September 11..." the cashier began.
"OK, cool," the consumer replied, evidently pleased with his choice'
The three left the store without further discussion.
For those three, perhaps 11. or 72 years old on Sept. 11,2001, the answer
to the question of "too soon" was, in fact, "too late." For them, the events
of September 11 had already taken on the sepia shade of distant history.
www.americanclty.org
 Like World War II, it was an event mined for entertainment, whether the
final production had the earnest reverence of. Saving Private Ryan, lhe
testosterone-fueled explosiveness of Pearl Harbor,or thepop-intellectualism
ofa Ken Burns documentary. "Never Forget" holds no power here.
What, then, can a memorial accomplish, beyond triggering memories of the
event itself? For Stastny, a memorial should be "experiential" marked by
space and reflection rather than "objective"
-
the typically monumental
- -
memorial. A useful memorial, in other words, speaks to the living, offering
more than an unapproachable headstone. For Linenthal, such reflection
provokes the "hope that visitors will not only remember the dead in these
particular situations and what they've done, but also extend that sense of
caring to victims of terrorism and political violence around the world."
I¡ISSENTING VOICES
For the September 1.1. memorials, such expansive empathy seems unlikely.
Early plans for the World Trade Center site included an International
Freedom Center museum. It would have staged exhibits on various
genocides and crimes against humanity to illustrate the difficult process
of establishing "international freedom." Critics balked at placing the
September l.l. attacks within a larger struggle for freedom, however, with
The New York Times architecture critic Nicolai Ouroussoff declaring the
museum's design "Orwellian," a "theme-park view of American ideals in
an alluring wrapper." After much politicking, then-New York Governor
George Pataki banned the IFC from the World Trade Center site.
Of course, the practicalities of memorial-building influenced his decision.
Fundraising for a $3 billion dollar rebuilding has enough challenges without
adding a controversial design to the mix. Developer Larry Silverstein's
insurance settlement following September 11 paid $1 billion, supplemented
by $ZSO million from the State of New York and another $1 billion in bonds
issued by New York's Port Authority. (Such impressive sums tend to attract
intense scrutiny; MSNBC's David Shuster, for one, has questioned the
impartiality of the design competition, suggesting Pataki exerted influence
in exchange for political donations.) New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg
has stepped in, helping raise over $165 million. Potential major donors such
as Cantor Fitzgerald and PricewaterhouseCoopers have withheld donations,
however, until the grouping of victims' names has been determined. The
Pentagon memorial hopes to raise $32 million, but large donations have come
slowly. And in Shanksville, the initial fundraising brought in only $i0.4 million
- in two years. The National Park Service has taken ove¡ hoping for at least
$30 million. But as time passes, donations only get harder to come by.
One memorial outside any of the crash sites does include multiple voices,
despite the difficult political-economic environment. In Phoenix, Arizona,
a state-sponsored 9/11 memorial included panels that put the attacks into
historical context. Among the inscriptions, visitors read, "Middle East
violence motivates attacks in US," "Foreign-born Americans afraid" and
"Terrorist organization leader addresses American people." Needless to
say, the inclusion of such timely, newspaper-headline sentiments provoked
controversy. When right-wing bloggers quickly denounced the memorial,
Arizona governor Janet Napolitano responded, "This Memorial is unique,
bold, dynamic, educational and unforgettable. The thoughts and remarks
etched in stone will serve as learning tools for all of us, our children and our
children's children." That memory and thought might work in concord seems
to have struck many as anathema to "Never Forget."
The Flight 93 permanent memorial has its own unintended controversy,
whipped up primarily by Califomia blogger Alec Rawls. Architect Paul
Murdoch originally titled the maple-tree landscape in his design, "The
THAT'S WHERE THE PLANE CAME
IIOWN. SEE HfIW THE HEMLOCKS
ARE BURNEB?
Wlnter 200?, No. l?
Crescent of Embrace." Rawls claims the design celebrates the Muslim
hijackers of Flight 93, the crescent is a symbol of Islam and oriented toward
Mecca. Tom Burnett Sr., father of one of the victims, agees: "I told them
we'd be a laughingstock if we did this," he said tothe Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
Burnett has refused to allow his son's name to be used in the memorial.
Mike Rosen of. the Rocky Mountain Neps offered a simple solution:
"Just come up with a different design that eliminates the double meaning
and the dispute." Double meaning, for Rosen, is one meaning too many.
For him, disputation has no place in memorial.
The World Tiade Center site has taken a similar approach.ln 9/11: The
Culture of Commemoration, David Simpson describes the design as "an orgy
of nomination: the 'Park of Heroes,' the 'Wedge of Light,' the 'Garden of
the World,' 'Memory's Eternal Foundation"' all overseen, of course, by
-
the 1,776-foot Freedom Tower. Presumably there's no misinterpreting that
singular message. Yet, Simpson wonders, what depth of reflection can such
a memorial provoke? "One might think that any democracy requiring this
sort of browbeating in the name of architecture must be in deep trouble,"
he writes. Democratic memorials might dare to risk multiple meanings. They
might dare to invite active participation reverential to be sure, but with an
-
understanding that debate and discussion also serve memory.
For former New York Governor Pataki, howeve¡ "In the end, there is
no right way to remember. It is only right that we remember" a slight
expansion upon "Never Forget." Again one thinks of the Ozymandias
-
criterion, imagining "the decay / Of that colossal wreck" at the third or
fourth centenary of the Freedom Tower, its names worn smooth by time,
What then will it mean?
It's unsurprising that a politician would evade such a question, but that
doesn't mean we all get off so easily. "Never Forget" marks a beginning,
not an end. As long as people can share it, the process of memory is never
complete, always in contestation, necessarily unstable. As Stastny puts it, "I
think a memorial, like a city, is never finished."
A TWICE-TOLB TALE
We remember in stone and in story; neither lasts forever. All memorials
are temporâry, subject to the ravages of time. Shanksville, for now, has
no elaborate cenotaphs, no Freedom Tower stretching for the sky. The
fence collects its tributes; benches record the passengers'names. There
is a small wooden building, not much bigger than the average bathroom.
It offers shelter from the wind, the breath that always blows here, always
animating, always threatening to erase.
On the coldest days, the Flight 93 Ambassadors huddle inside this
humble outpost. There you'll find them, ready to tell the story. When I
visited in January, I found Emily Jerich and her husband, Stan, waiting.
She asked whether I'd heard "the story." I had, many times, from many
different sources, and I learned to appreciate them as variations on a
theme not "the" story, but a collection of voices, reading from the
-
same event, each with its own rhythms and revelations. The stories were
extended names, ways of finding home in an event so challenging to our
comprehension. Admixtures of dread and hope, they did not try to deny
time, but only to understand it, to find a place within it.
Jerich recounted her version of the story emphasizing a Bible found in
the wreckage, not open to a particular page as some claim, but flapping
in the wind. She speaks in conditionals: If the plane had waited only four
minutes, if it had flown only three more seconds. Had it waited four minutes,
the plane would have been grounded. Had it flown for three more seconds,
it might've struck Shanksville's only school. She calls her ambassadorship
a duty, is proud and humbled "To be here, to guard the place, to tell the
story." Late¡ another ambassador arrives, Sue Strohm. She tells a less
detailed version of the story saying she realizes she's there to listen as much
as to speak. "The plane went over everybody's house," she says.
And everyone has their story. fl