Moving quickly to snuff out controversy, the National Park Service on Wednesday said key changes would be made to a proposed 9/11 memorial in Pennsylvania in order to eliminate any association with a crescent – the symbol of Islam.
Joanne Hanley, the Park Service superintendent for the memorial, said she had full confidence in the way the design was selected – a two-year process – and the result – a sweeping memorial to United Flight 93 that includes an arc of maple trees called the “Crescent of Embrace.”
But in acknowledging growing complaints that the design evokes Islam – the religion of the terrorists who hijacked the plane – Hanley said the memorial’s name would be changed and that modifications in the design would be made to squelch a controversy that threatened to “blemish the intent of the memorial,” she said.
“The name change is going to happen,” Hanley said. And “as part of the next step of the design process, (architect Paul) Murdoch is exploring architectural refinements” that will modify or eliminate the crescent.
The controversy began bubbling up in blogs and conservative websites over the past week. Tuesday, Colorado Rep. Tom Tancredo sent a letter to the Park Service demanding that the design be changed.
“This is a victory not for me but for the families of the victims,” Tancredo said.
Critics of the proposed changes point out that family members helped choose the design and say the agency is caving to political pressure.
“To suggest that these family members who spent hundreds of hours picking a memorial that deals in a very sensitive way with this sacred ground somehow created a memorial designed to honor the murderers of their loved ones is obscene,” said Edward Linenthal, a history professor and a member of the federal advisory commission for the memorial.
“Whether there are changes or not, the reason they are being done is bothersome to me,” he said.
How extensive the changes will be is still unclear.
Murdoch, whose design was chosen from 1,100 entries, said Wednesday that his goal would be to make changes that would allay critics’ concerns while still maintaining the design’s original concept – the delineation of sacred ground with a gesture of embrace.
“It caught us off guard,” Murdoch said. “It’s very difficult to design anything with this emotional content without some controversy. But the degree to which this particular button has been pushed is very much a surprise.
“We’re finding a form that everyone involved in the selection process has deemed to be appropriate to the place and the event that occurred. I think it’s a shame that those qualities are being overlooked and that this memorial is being distorted on a simplistic level,” he said.
But the criticisms have clearly taken their toll.
Some bloggers have suggested that Murdoch’s use of a symbol strongly associated with Islam was intentional or that the architect somehow wanted to secretly subvert the spirit of the project.
Park Service offices have been flooded with e-mails and phone calls from talk-radio listeners and Internet users across the country.
Murdoch’s memorial isn’t the first to be caught up in controversy.
When it was unveiled in 1982, the design of the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington, a sunken wall with the names of the war dead, was blasted by critics as unfitting. And a controversy is currently raging over the design and contents of the 9/11 memorial at the World Trade Center site in New York.
The chosen design for the twin towers memorial “is being modified in so many ways that it’s bordering on unrecognizable,” said Fred Bernstein, whose design for that site was popular with judges but rejected by developers.
“Winning a competition is no guarantee that you’ll see your design built in any way that is recognizable,” he said.
Part of that is the emotional impact of these sites and the role they play in grieving both for victims’ families and the country as a whole, experts say.
In the case of the Pennsylvania memorial, some defenders of the original design say there is something else at work.
“We’ve unfortunately seen a rise in level of anti-Islamic rhetoric in our society, and I think this incident is a reflection of that,” said Ibrahim Hooper, a spokesman for the Council on American Islamic Relations in Washington.
The Park Service has yet to certify a final design for the memorial. Public comments are still being analyzed, and the final design changes will take place over the next two months, with final approval by the Interior Department.
Dorothy Garcia, whose husband was killed on Flight 93, said she hopes that whatever the final result, it remains true to the symbolism of the current design, which, as a juror in the final selection, she helped choose.
“This was an open design. The format gave ample opportunity for public comment,” she said.
“I believe it is a total insult to me as a family member to think that I would need to be told how to judge a design that honors my husband and 39 other heroes,” Garcia said.
Staff writer Michael Riley can be reached at 303-820-1614 or mriley@denverpost.com.
