The 9/11 Museum is a Museum… So It’s Going to have a Gift Shop

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I’m a New Yorker. I was downtown when the attacks happened. And I’ve been disgusted over the years by the situation around it, the area neglect, the 9/11 Truthers desecrating the site and the African vendors pushing touristy crap… often unlicensed.

I dislike going by there because of the memories and because I don’t particularly like the spectacle, smiling families posing for photos and assorted wackos pushing literature, but if you are going to have a museum, you are going to have a gift shop.

My own preference would have been for rebuilding the Towers and placing a memorial at the base. Instead the rebuilding was a disaster and there’s a memorial and a museum.

I haven’t been to the museum and have no intention of going,  but I didn’t see anything offensive about the 9/11 merchandise. The NYPD/FDNY gear, as always, helps fund the cops and firefighters. The rest of it helps fund the museum. It’s not particularly tacky and if people aren’t buying it at the museum, they’ll be buying it from the Muslim vendors is outside.

If people feel the need for souvenirs, then it’s better if they get a somber stylized pin at the museum than a holographic 9/11 keychain made in Shanghai from Abdul Fareed outside.

it seems to me there are two species of anger here. One is coming from some 9/11 family members who have a lot of reasons to be angry. Much of their anger concentrates around the disposal of human remains. The gift shop and cocktail party are incidental to that question. It’s the human remains that touch a nerve.

The other is fake outrage from the Daily News/New York Post tabloid press that is looking to feed controversies. These papers are not outraged, they’re practicing click bait. If they’re really upset, I’m sure their corporate bosses would be happy to fund the 9/11 museum eliminating the need for anything as crass as a gift shop.

I’m not happy with the outcome of the rebuilding at Ground Zero, but I don’t see what picking pointless fights over accommodations that all museums have is meant to accomplish… besides feed traffic to some sites. There are more worthwhile things to save that energy for once the other side begins making headway at censoring references to Islam from the museum.

I would like to see the site treated with more respect, but that’s been a lost cause ever since the cops allowed Truthers and vendors to overrun the area. And there are far too many tourists who treat it as another stop on a tour and behave with very little respect. Fixing that would be a more worthwhile effort than denouncing the gift shop or the restaurant.

  • DogmaelJones1

    Daniel: I agree one hundred percent with everything you say here. Incidentally, I wrote the Foreword to this book on the obscene fight over what to replace the Twin Powers with:

    http://www.amazon.com/Debacle-Failing-Rebuild-Twin-Towers-ebook/dp/B005ME3GMS/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1400721339&sr=1-2&keywords=debacle+world+trade+center

    • Daniel Greenfield

      it’s well worth reading

    • truebearing

      I couldn’t agree more, both with Daniel’s sentiments and the exposure of the moral corruption that prevented the Twin Towers from being rebuilt just as they were, only stronger and taller. Kudos to both of you.

      • DogmaelJones1

        Thank you.

    • wileyvet

      Nice job on the forward. It is indeed sad and pathetic that venal and spineless politicians serving their own little fiefdoms, don’t know what the right thing is. “Please Mr. Muslim, we’re sorry. What can we do to make you like us” seems to be their mindset. America was attacked for sure, and it was an overt act of war. It is however the other side of the Jihad coin, that has been waging the stealth jihad for decades in America. It is incomprehensible to me that the doors of America were not closed to Muslims after that fateful day, and that your nation and indeed the world has been fed a never ending stream of disinformation and outright lies about the religion of peace from both Muslim and non-Muslim apologists. One can only hope that the tide is turning in the battle for truth, and the great Islamic lie will be finally exposed. Keep up the great work.

  • laura r

    daniel, does yad vashem have a gift shop? i dont remember, i was falling apart in shock by the time i left.

    • Daniel Greenfield

      Yes. It’s how museums help fund themselves.

      • laura r

        i will check out the websight. besides books, dvds, jewish stars, & rememberance key chains (?? i made that one up). i cant imagine what they would sell.

        • darnellecheri

          Auschwitz-Birkenau does as well. It is called a bookshop and I don’t remember any cheap trinkets. I do remember tourists taking pictures in certain rooms at Auschwitz I & II. To me it felt like desecration and utter disrespect. I was visibly shaken. I suppose it would be similar at the Twin Tower Memorial.

          • laura r

            taking photos of a concentration camp is good. it documents the denial.

        • Daniel Greenfield

          books on the Holocaust mainly

          most museum gift shops move books, they’re the high priced items, the rest is souvenirs

          • laura r

            books are very important. as for “souvenirs” i want to check on that. hope its good taste.

  • Texas Patriot

    It was the worst attack on American soil in the history of the United States. I’m just glad they didn’t build the Cordoba Mosque as a memorial.

    • Daniel Greenfield

      they still want to

      • Texas Patriot

        Of course. Every conquest in the history of Islam has been commemorated and memorialized by the building of a mosque. It’s like their version of Iwo Jima. Mecca, Damascus, Jerusalem, Constantinople, the list goes on and on. Why should New York be any different? My Brunei Moment came when I realized that they wanted to name it after the mosque in Cordoba, Spain.

  • pennant8

    I agree with you that the outrage over the museum gift shop is way overblown. You make an excellent point about the street vendors. I have visited the site several times. Early on I picked a couple of good photo books from a vendor. Good thing too because nowadays finding good photo coverage of that horrible day is difficult. Which brings me to my main point. I’m not concerned about the tacky merchandise that is available, what I am concerned about is the merchandise that I am guessing is not available. Particularly books that examine the roots of both attacks on the WTC. For example, will they be selling any books by Andrew C. McCarthy? probably not.

    • Daniel Greenfield

      I would doubt it

  • Anukem Jihadi

    Is it a memorial or a museum? If it’s just another museum then I guess it needs a gift shop. If it’s something unusual then maybe it doesn’t.
    If there are two species of rage then perhaps they’re not mutually exclusive. They seem to overlap in my mind.
    Why would a museum that collects human remains have good taste elsewhere?
    Perhaps I’m wrong?