I just posted this comment in this MetaFilter thread and for the first time in days I felt an emotion besides numbness and exhaustion. I’m pissed. This city doesn’t need a useless memorial. We need a living, working memorial. New York City is about work 100% of the time. Leisure is crammed into the other 10%.

To rebuild them as they were seems perverse. Maybe if one building had survived we could justify fixing the pair, but that didn’t happen. They knocked them down, we need to build them back better than they were. The best possible memorial to the lives lost is the biggest pair of buildings on the planet. These should dwarf the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur.

The sky over downtown seems like a disfigurement. Everytime anyone looks across the skyline it will remind them that we lost something. To not rebuild those buildings, to not fill that void would be to wallow in defeat.

Fear of another attack can not dissuade us. Everything that can be done to prevent terrorism should be done, but we can not live in fear.

Civilians shouldn’t be in allowed into the dangerous areas (exception being those with specific, needed skills). Let people trained and experienced at following orders work there, they won’t endanger themselves or others through lack of experience. Still, those clouds of building didn’t stay close by. The satellite photos show most of downtown covered in dust.

This is my city. I want to sweep up, I want to clean. Let me help clear Nassau St, Battery Place, Broad Street. Let me clear papers and ash from the steps where George Washington was inaugurated. The buildings on those streets are not in danger of collapsing. I need to help. I need to sweat. I need to do whatever small bit I can to put my city back together.