Hey, 9/11 tourists - stay home, go home

[TomClash]

LIVING WITH 9/11 -- Ground zero, tourist trap?
By LISA TOLIN

NEW YORK — Tourists walk up to the hole with cameras, laughing about some oddity noticed a block away.

<snip>

Five years after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, its horrors have been incorporated into our national psyche. They are reflected in our politics, our art, our wars. But they are also easily forgotten.

And while the tourists come here to remember, their visits can seem cavalier, like one more stop sandwiched between the Statue of Liberty and Times Square.

"It's not an amusement park, but some people treat it as such," says a Port Authority police officer who asked not to be identified. Thirty-seven Port Authority officers died in the attacks. "People ask for the gift shop. That hurts."

The unofficial gift shop is down the street, where vendors sell T-shirts and posters. Jose Enriques, 40, says he sells 10 to 15 photo albums a day, for $5 apiece.

With no fixed memorial yet, capitalists have filled the gap. It's a byproduct of our consumer culture, says Eric Klinenberg, an assistant professor of sociology at New York University.

<snip>

http://www.statesman.com/news/content/shared-gen/ap/asap/Lifestyle/asap_Lifestyles_9_11_Ground_Zero_Tourism.html

I had to work today and my office is caddy-corner to the site. Thousands of tourists with their cameras big and small, gangs of cyclists in "tough guy gear," cheap 9/11 "memorabilia" hawked at every corner - more than usual - everyone out to see the great death trap "where history was made," 5 years gone. Bourgeois trash, material and human, mingling where "everything changed."

This anniversary cannot pass away fast enough.

[gordianot]

1. Republicans try to sell the 9-11 tragedy during every election cycle.

It is time to say no sale.

[TomClash]

2. I'm all for that nt

[stillcool]

3. sad... n/t

[SoCalDem]

4. I loathe the way they all say "celebrate 9-11"

like it's something good.. You may commemorate something like that, but never celebrate that anniversary.:grr:

and it should be a low-key, respectful commemoration.. like some moments of silence and perhaps wreaths of flowerson the grounds of the Statue of Liberty.. She watched over the whole debacle..

The NYCers KNOW where the "hole" is.. they do not need lookyloos showing up..

[AnnieBW]

5. Treat 'em like Tommy Gavin did!

I suggest that you treat the gawkers and junk peddlers like Tommy Gavin (Dennis Leary's character in "Rescue Me") did one time during season 1. Beat the crap out of them.

[TomClash]

7. The street peddlers are mostly poor guys

It's their bosses and the touristas who need a flogging.

[pansypoo53219]

6. when i stopped in briefly to visit uncle in manhattan

before going home in 03', i made him take me down there. i was appalled at the crap being sold. and i ignored the empty spot, the tourists, but took pictures of all the old buildings that had survived that day, and enjoyed the churchyard and cemetary that finally got some sun in the afternoon. i had gotten to the other church in the area but missed that one in 1998. i did not see TWC then, but it was omnipresent in many of my photos from a boat trip we took.

considering all the new national guards posted, i felt the change since 98'.
WHERE'S OSAMA GEORGE?

NY deserves some peace.