Quincy’s 9-11 Monument Need To Be More Visible

Today marks the 18^th anniversary of 9-11. As each year goes by the memory of 9-11 fades and that is unfortunate. A generation of people have grown up since that horrible day. It is an event that we should never, ever forget. One way to keep that from happening is to remind people of what took place.  For people in Quincy and the surrounding area stopping by the 9-11 artifact located in the Quincy City Hall parking lot would go a long way to making sure we never forget the attack on the United States in 2001.  We are blessed to have it in Quincy.

With that said, I am about to go on my bandwagon again.  I made the next statement a year ago and I stand by it today. The display of a 15 foot portion of Quincy's Harris Corporation made radio tower located on the top of Building #1 of the World Trade Center in New York when the building crumbled, needs to be re-located.

When it was retrieved in 2011 by then Mayor John Spring and then City Engineer Jeff Steinkamp and permanently displayed at City Hall, it seemed like a great spot to mount it. If you are in the City Hall parking lot it is a great display.  If you drive by City Hall, as most people do, it looks like a rusted out piece of scrap metal from the street.

I brought up this idea to relocate the 9-11 artifact a couple of years ago and met resistance primarily from people who work at City Hall. They want it to remain there and I can appreciate their thoughts, but it’s time to make it more visible to the thousands who don’t go into the City Hall parking lot and to all of the visitors to our city as well.

So here is my proposal. Why not re-locate the 9-11 display on the property where the Newcomb Hotel was?  Think of the thousands of people who would get to see it every single day at that location. That vacant corner could be re-landscaped to accommodate the addition. To construct a new display at 4th and Maine would be yet another historical addition to the Washington Park and downtown area.

When you look at the display, it may look like 15 feet of scrap metal, but it represents everything this country stands for. Let’s make it more visible and move the 9-11 display and keep the memory of 9-11 prominent in the minds of everyone. Remember “out of sight, out of mind!” is not what we want because… we should NEVER forget!