|
Falling Woman
I am a member of the Forum who (unfortunately) does a lot more reading (with fascination) of posts than I participate in; as a New Yorker, I'd like to comment.
At this time last year, New York City was wallpapered with posters and signs of the "missing", the people who disappeared on Sept. 11th. The walls, which were in many subway stations or busy places where they couldn't be missed, became memorials for a short time, with flowers and candles.
Huge crowds would gather and stand silently, reading, staring and crying. Some people would run past and try not to look, because it was unbearably painful to look. Eventually, though it was, in one way, hard to see these go, the signs were all taken down.
For me, it was a relief in that it began to return New York City to normal life. It is my feeling that placing a statue like the one in question in very populated and public thoroughfare is a constant reminder of pain that impairs the healing process, as the posters of the missing would have been had they remained up any longer.
Art, or anything created relating to Sept. 11 should be considerate of the fact that this is an unusually sensitive topic. Putting that statue in the middle of Rockefeller center seems tactless to me. Like the presence of all the missing faces posted all over the city last year, it's just too painful to keep looking.
|