How to Build a Better Memorial

At Slate, on this day of days, Witold Rybczynski asks: Why can't we build a 9/11 memorial like this?

This is the Spire of Dublin, inaugurated in 2002, and built to replace Nelson's Pillar, which "was erected in central Dublin in 1809 to memorialize the British admiral and was demolished in 1966 after being fatally damaged by an IRA bomb."

The parallels are pretty clean: Iconic construction destroyed by terrorists. Cities in need of a replacement. Dublin wins.

Here I chronicle the woes of building on the World Trade Center site, and here Todd Seavey discusses Art Deco at Ground Zero.