The protracted, often dysfunctional process of planning for Ground Zero affected plans for the site’s memorial as well as for a new World Trade Center complex.  Now, finally, the tenth anniversary of 9/11 will feature the dedication of the memorial.  The accompanying museum and the nearby buildings are still a work in progress — “progress” being a relative term, but one we at least can now use in reference to the site.

The memorial consists of large waterfalls and reflecting pools within the footprints of the twin towers surrounded by walls inscribed with the names of the victims of 9/11 and the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.  This reflects the influence Maya Lin’s 1981 design for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington has had on subsequent memorials.  Lin was actually on the jury that selected Michael Arad’s proposal in the 2003 memorial design competition, which drew 5,201 entries, and all of the serious contenders are reported to have reflected the minimalist orthodoxy that has emerged in the construction of memorials over the last 30 years.  Lin’s design succeeded as a poignant reminder of loss at home through sacrifice in a distant and tragically unsuccessful war, but later architectural attempts to replicate this success in different contexts have met with mixed results.

The winning design for the Ground Zero memorial was proposed under the name “Reflecting Absence,” and visitors will undoubtedly be struck by the sense of absence created in the physical void.  The new World Trade Center buildings will stand adjoining the memorial site, dominated by One World Trade Center, the spire of which will rise 1,776 feet into the air.  It will be interesting to see how much the memorial’s waterfalls, on a site surrounded by a field of trees, will effectively transport visitors entirely away from the surrounding environment, which of course resembles what once stood there far more than the memorial site.

With rare exceptions, my own preference is for monuments that can be viewed by looking up toward the sky rather than down toward the ground.  The 150-foot tall Grant’s Tomb is the largest monument on the island of Manhattan.  In my own architecturally dated mind, in the aftermath of 9/11, it seemed appropriate, if unlikely, that this distinction ultimately would belong to the memorial constructed at Ground Zero.  Still, the view that a void in itself would be a memorial overlooks the likelihood that future generations, who never will have seen the towers in the sky, will not appreciate what once stood at that site.  For one of the most historic regions in the nation — the first United States capital under the Constitution, in fact — Lower Manhattan has done an abysmal job of preserving a past that has meant so much to the legacy we have inherited.  Our success in memorializing 9/11 can well turn on whether Ground Zero site, like the nearby Statue of Liberty, calls out to the nation and its transcendent values.

Predicting the impact a memorial will have is a tricky undertaking, just as it is difficult to design a memorial that can provide context to visitors in 50 or 100 years.  Conveying absence is appropriate to a point, but I am not sure visitors will draw from this the essential context of 9/11: that what occurred was not just loss, but (to borrow Franklin Roosevelt’s words regarding Pearl Harbor) a dastardly attack; that the target was not merely a collection of offices, but America; that the objective was to destroy lives (whether U.S. citizens or not) and architecture that conveyed America’s strength; and that this tragic event included heroism and sacrifice on a scale commensurate with the most ambitious city in the world.

Let me suggest that Ground Zero has already seen the monument that conveys the transcendent spirit of our response to 9/11 in full context.  It was visible all over New York and across the country, and its familiarity did not diminish its power.  I refer to the American flag.  It made the point as widely as yellow ribbons during the Iranian hostage crisis, and as we risk being eluded by the obvious, we should regard no memorial to 9/11 as complete without it.

In the grand style that defines New York, technology would permit the installation of a flag visible at great distances.  It could reach for the skies like the Tribute in Light, the beams that have been projected from the site, or it could fly closer to the ground.  With modern light and hologram technology, we would not even require a giant cloth to create it.

It is fitting to commemorate loss and absence, but a void does not swallow up the values embodied by those lost or lessen the determination to conquer the evil that brought about the destruction.   The flag’s simplicity is sublime.  At Ground Zero, it would convey that the reason we were attacked is the reason we will prevail, and that the malevolence motivated by murderous ideology is no match for the human spirit.

Frank Scaturro is a former Counsel for the Constitution on the Senate Judiciary Committee and Republican candidate for the United States House of Representatives in New York’s 4^th Congressional District.  He is also president of the Grant Monument Association.