From Portraits to Puddles

Surely we can offer the victims of 9/11 a better tribute than Reflecting Absence, a gloomy piece of landscape architecture with lists of names. But what makes an effective tribute? What makes a memorable memorial? The sculptures in nearby Battery Park provide excellent examples of memorials dedicated over the past hundred years. This essay points out lessons from half a dozen of them that can be applied to a memorial for the World Trade Center - and explains how our memorials declined from portraits to puddles. Read it in the comfort of your armchair (about 250 photos are included) or go on a walking tour. Also included: an illustrated and annotated list of 30 memorials in Manhattan that are dedicated to people whose job is to keep us safe: soldiers, policemen, firemen, and so on.