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.





















