Hundreds of family members of victims of the Sept. 11 World Trade Center attack rallied at Ground Zero on Wednesday to demand a planned monument there extend down to the bedrock footprint of the razed buildings.
Standing along the eastern edge of Ground Zero, members of the Coalition of 9/11 Families wore yellow ribbons bordered in black, brandished photos of departed loved ones and chanted "preserve sacred ground" the day before the second anniversary of the New York attacks that killed nearly 2,800 people.
The coalition objects to the Lower Manhattan Development Commission's (LMDC) guidelines for a memorial, which would begin three stories below the surface level, reserving the three stories below that for infrastructure purposes.
The protesters insist the remains of their loved ones lie on the bedrock level and that a memorial must be built from the bedrock up.
"I'm very fortunate. We got Danny's remains back in March. A lot of these people don't. This is the only place they have to go," said Bill O'Callaghan, who held a picture of his 42-year-old brother Danny, a firefighter who died in the 9/11 rescue effort.
"This is a battlefield. It should be kept as a world memorial," he said.
Demonstrators wore T-shirts with the names and pictures of those lost in the suicide airliner attacks on the buildings. Homemade signs were held along with pre-printed signs delivering messages such as "We Will Never Forget," "Preserve Sacred Ground" and "Don't Build on My Sister's Grave."
A videotape of a pledge last year June by New York Governor George Pataki was played, when he said; "We will never build where the towers stood ... where the towers stood is hallowed ground."
Later on Wednesday, another group of families who object to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq that followed the Sept. 11 attacks will hold a candlelight vigil at the site.
Yesterday an official ceremony was planned at Ground Zero to mark the anniversary.
RSS