Pain and Politics of Ground Zero

A detailed article on the controversy regarding families of some who died at the WTC on 9-11.

The Grief Police
No one says the 9/11 families aren't entitled to their pain. But should a small handful of them have the power to reshape ground zero?

The attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon left us with a total of 2,933 people recorded dead. Liberally speaking, that could mean that as many as 10,000 or 15,000 parents and children and siblings might be inclined to stay involved in the rebuilding of ground zero-this, not including the thousands of survivors of the attacks, the dozens of first responders who made it out alive, and all their families.

In reality, it's more like 30. Not 30,000, but 30. It's only 30 people like Ielpi who have kept their hands in the game by regularly attending planning meetings, helming Websites, filing lawsuits, and fighting political battles-over the security of new skyscrapers, the burial of unidentified remains, the separate placement of the names of firefighters among the lists of the dead, the size of a memorial. When rallies are held-like the one last month to preserve the human remains from the site that are still stored at Fresh Kills-these 30 people draw at most a few hundred.

Of the 30 hard-core activists, just half are part of Take Back the Memorial. It's these fifteen people who have come to stand, in the eyes of the public, for the views of all 9/11 families-even though many 9/11 family members supported the IFC and other ground-zero development as well. "I personally do not represent the families," says Paula Grant Berry, who lost her husband, David, on 9/11, and is the only family member to have served on the panel that chose Arad's memorial design. "No family member can. I wouldn't know where to begin. Just because you're a family member doesn't mean you can't be manipulative. And just because you're a family member doesn't mean you can't be manipulated by other family members."

No one, not even the Take Back the Memorial members' most bitter opponents, denies the families their grief and the substance of at least some of their arguments. But however heartbreaking their stories-and however relevant the concern that future generations remember what happened that September morning-the Take Back the Memorial members are far from the only interested parties at ground zero. Thousands of people who live and work downtown are still waiting for shops and services. Thousands of workers-many of them survivors, too, who saw bodies fall and ran for their lives as the towers collapsed-are pained by the still-gaping pit and are waiting for a new center for international commerce to curb the loss of Wall Street jobs.