Right Monument—Wrong Location?

Great Debates
1

Here’s a link to today’s NYT article about the WWII monument, which is finally set to start construction:

http://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/15/national/15MEMO.html

I agree with the folks who say this is going to ruin the sweep of the Mall from the Washington to the Lincoln memorial—why the hell couldn’t they have found a better location for this thing? No one is saying there shouldn’t BE a WWII memorial—but does it have to plop itself right in the middle of the goddam Mall?

P.S. I hope it includes a statue of Betty Grable!

2

I assume from your thread that, in spite of your name, you’re male. Not that this has anything to do with the thread.

I’m not opposed to the monument being at the mall, provided it does not have the excess tourist baggage that is proposed. I think that the WWII monument could actually augment the significance of the mall, provided it is built in such a way to meld into the scenery. Granted the expanse between the Wash. monument and Lincoln’s statue is beautiful. Uninterrupted greenery with water is always nice. A monument on one side would break the symmetry, however. Perhaps they should build two, one on each side.

3

Well, considering the WWIII monument will have to be somewhere on the outskirts of the blast site…

4

From the articles I’ve read in other media (I think Time Magazine discussed it, and also the Los Angeles Times) it also seemed to me that the monument was going to diminish the beauty of the existing Washington Mall. I don’t know Washington DC well enough to suggest an alternate location though. What surprises me the most is that there is yet no WWII memorial?! Why did the USA wait so long?

5

“I assume from your thread that, in spite of your name, you’re male.”

—? ? ?

6

Eve, male??? Bite your tongue! Why in the world would you think that?

7

I was down at the Mall for Veteran’s Day, on which they performed the groundbreaking. (I was there later in the day.) It was a little jarring to look down the Mall from the Lincoln Memorial and see this huge thing on the other side of the Reflecting Pool, but I’ll reserve judgement until it’s built. I haven’t lived here nearly long enough to be as up-in-arms over it as some people seem to be.

8

I think it has something do to with wanting a statue of Betty Grable?

I have a feeling it has more to do with women’s lib than with sexual gratification on Eve’s part, though.

9

Last I heard, they didn’t even have a final design for the damn thing. And I thought they rejected an alternate site across the tidybowl basin near FDR’s shrine.

What’s with you losers. That’s prime developable space right there. When Clinton leaves office they’re gonna float a casino riverboat in the reflecting pool. The more the merrier!

Yeah. Eve’s just one of the guys. And we sit around belchin, fartin, and scratchin.

Perhaps we have located the target audience for “Dude…?”

10

Or her impressive knowledge of all things Hollywood and Grable’s contribution to the war.