New York City, New York – World Trade Center Memorial
Intended as a solemn place to honour the people who lost their lives in the 1993 and 2001 terrorist attacks on US soil, the World Trade Center Memorial and the museum here will be combined in an underground complex below Ground Zero. The Memorial will be opened to the public on September 11 2009 and the museum, a year later in 2010.
After 9/11 most people expected the site of the twin towers to become a memorial. It took the city administration a year to clear the site – dubbed Ground Zero – of the debris. Most of the memorabilia collected during this time, including some 1,000-odd WTC artefacts – was assembled in a hangar at JFK Airport.
Soon after the attack the then New York Mayor, Rudolph Giuliani, set up the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation (LMDC) to oversee the rebuilding of the site. In April 2003, the LMDC announced a contest to design a 9/11 memorial. After reviewing 5,201 entries, Michael Arad and Peter Walker’s design “Reflecting Absence” was selected. The winning design envisages two massive voids with dramatic waterfalls cascading down their sides into two tranquil reflecting pools with the names of all the people who died inscribed on the walls.
In 2005 the efforts of the LMDC were fortified by the formation of the World Trade Center Memorial Foundation, a non-profit organisation, which offered to fund and operate the memorial.
Currently, all roads lead to Tribute WTC on 120 Liberty Street, where you can view some exhibits. The center also offers walking tours with survivors or those involved in the rescue on that fateful day.
The World Trade Center Conspiracy
The World Trade Center was attacked once in 1993 when the government of the United States had won its indirect war against Russia and decided to leave a communist government there rather than a government ruled by Islamic Jihadists who had expelled Russia in the first place. The attacks were blamed on the Mujahideen and with that the affiliation of America with them ended to the world. On the ninth of September, four planes were hijacked and headed for specific targets on American soil. Two of them hitting the world trade centre, one crashing into the Pentagon and one crash landed in Shanksville.
Everyone was shocked after seeing the video clips. It was all blamed on Al-Qaeeda and they took responsibility. It was supposed to be simple and we all got emotional. A war on terror was declared and two countries were attacked by us. But as people cooled down, different theories came into being; showing that it all was not as straightforward as it looked. The number of facts or theories that the conspiracy theorists present just cannot be neglected.
BBC’s report on September 18th that the former foreign ministry secretary was told by senior American officials in mid June that the US was planning to attack Afghanistan in October that year and NORAD (America’s air defence department) not being able to shoot down the planes are facts that lead some conspiracy theorists to think that the government had foreknowledge of the attacks, yet they went silent to give them an excuse to launch an assault on Afghanistan and control a very strategic location in the region close to it’s arch enemies. Other theories are related to how the WTC towers fell is also very interesting. As many constructional engineers regard the way the building collapse to be impossible to achieve by crashing planes into it. A chemical professor of an American university claims that hints of small micro chip bombs were found in the dust caused by the collapse of the buildings. The crash into the Pentagon building is also disputed as theorists claim that it is impossible for such a huge commercial plane to leave so little an impact in the building, in fact they say that a missile was used to do the damage. BBC also released the identities of the hijackers before any formal announcement by the CIA was made, which also lead to the doubts of the government already being in the knowledge about them. Osama bin Laden has only admitted responsibility in one tape till this day that tape too is challenged because of doubts about its authenticity.
Many different theories exist but the answer may or may not be one of the following: Al Qaeda, The American Government, or the most probable of all that the Government knew about it but never reacted and let it happen.