Exit through the 9/11 Museum gift shop

[Ex-Siny]

The museum costs a lot of money to run and $24 entrance fee does not even begin to cover it. I think it should be supported by the federal government, but as long as it's not they have to make the money somehow.

[Kad]

But why did we need such a lavish museum in the first place? Why is the answer to unfathomable loss just more... stuff?

[DottieD'Luscia]

The only time I've been down to the site was in December 2001. I used to temp for a firm in the World Trade Center as well as another firm at the World Financial Center. I had moved from NYC the year before, and just couldn't grasp that this actually happened. I have not been back there since and have only seen the new building from a distance.

I just read a story in the Washington Post where it said that the selection of souvenir merchandise was tastefully selected (or something along those lines). It's all very crass, and somehow I will never consider a foam finger as something that remotely comes close to being tasetful.

[FindingNamo]

If you remember, President George W Bush famously instructed the American public that the best thing they could do in the wake of the tragedy was to go out shopping. The gift shop is the logical extension of that. Remember when the concept of erecting a mosque a few blocks away was more than a lot of people could handle?

[Liza's Headband]

"But why did we need such a lavish museum in the first place?"

A major tragedy deserves a major memorial.

Until you visit it and experience it firsthand, I don't know that you can properly comment on the museum in that way. With the exception of the gift shop, It was very tastefully done and created in the vein of many Holocaust museums wherein the primary objective is to educate generations who were not around when it happened and to drive home the message of 'Never Forget.' Sounds very similar to the other memorials and museums centered around tragedy (Oklahoma bombing, TWA crash, Columbine Shooting, etc.)

ETA: I do agree that the gift shop needs to go. It's purely for revenue since they so heavily depend on private support. But this site should be classified as a National Memorial so they can have immediate access to government funding. It's a no brainer.

[PalJoey]

The issue should not be IF there is a shop, but what kind of shop there is. A bookshop, like the one at the Anne Frank House, would have offended no one.

[Liza's Headband]

^ Good point.

[Ex-Siny]

I think this museum is a good thing - but not for New Yorkers. I recently brought a foreign friend to the Memorial and we stopped at the Info Center on Vessey Street first. She was fascinated by the exhibits and really touched. I will definitely bring her to the Museum next time she visits.

I visited Oklahoma City Memorial when I was there and I am sure the locals complain about that one too, but I was really touched. And it has a gift shop too.

[Marianne2]

Yes, educational books would not be bothersome. The crap like an umbrella, jewelry, dog stuffed animals, dog pins, are stupid and tasteless.

And no, I do not need to go and relive the horrible image of the 1 tower with a hole in it and black smoke coming out. I also don't need to keep being reminded of the look on my teacher's face when we saw that tower come down live on tv. So I will still not go.

[Brian07663NJ]

"Thank god they're not selling Jenga."

Tazber...in time, unfortunately, they most likely will.
Look at the products that have come out of another tragedy:

Titanic the Board Game
http://www.amazon.com/Universal-Games-Titanic-Board-Game/dp/B00001SHP8

Titanic Diving Game for the pool
http://www.amazon.com/Swimline-9178-Swimming-Underwater-Diving/dp/B002WOQQKA/ref=sr_1_6?s=toys-and-games&ie=UTF8&qid=1400608568&sr=1-6&keywords=titanic

Gin and Titonic ice cube tray
http://www.amazon.com/Fred-Friends-Titonic-Cube-Tray/dp/B001GQ2SQ6

Survive the Titanic inflatable ride for kids
http://www.fun-makers.com/titanic-slide-rental.html

[FindingNamo]

About 25 years ago a cool dyke colleague of mine went for a visit to historic Salem, Massachusetts. She came back and told me she was uncomfortable with all the adorable little stuffed witches and such on sale. She wondered if in 300 years time there would be cute stuffed Jewish caricatures for sale at Auschwitz? She was of Jewish descent so she was totally allowed to make that analogy.

[PalJoey]

Salem, of course, is the ultimate example of how to turn a tragedy into schlock.

[FindingNamo]

They should sell little stuffed Macklemores at Auschwitz. Then a kid could have collect assorted tragedy plushies! 9/11 dogs, smiley witches... the whole nine...

[NYadgal]

Oh, no no no no no! A gift shop? No.

I, personally, feel a memorial museum is appropriate, and important. But, a gift shop? Never.

[FindingNamo]

Does anybody still use... mouse pads?

[broadwayguy2]

I visited the Memorial for the first time last year.
The Memorial ITSELF is surreal and breathtaking and beautiful.
The security measures to get TO the Memorial were a bit.. Unsettlingly creepy.. For me.
The under construction museum was also a bit horrific... Looking through the window and seeing the tridents standing proud among construction dust and rubble. It gave birth to flashbacks,
However, what really took the cake, was being funneled through the Memorial Gift Shop to leave. Some of the products lists for the museum gift shop have been on sale there, so I am not surprised to see them listed. Of course, that leaves me no less offended. I stood there for a good while in that gift shop slack jawed and horrified and the things for sale, the commercialization of it and the hand over fist clamor of people buying... Even the American flag where the star and stripes are created using the names of victims left me fuming... Let's not even get to the 9/11 Memorial Motorcycle on display for pictures..

[FindingNamo]

But this is the state of the country now. The only way people in contemporary US culture can feel as if they are doing something is to shop. The Million Moms go after Ellen Degeneris? "Support Ellen by shopping at JCPenney!" Have terrible memories of the day of the worst terrorist attack on US soil? "Support the memorial museum by buying these earrings!"

This is what we have come to. This is all we have left.

[Addison D.]

Oy--you're all so exhausting with your righteous indignation and your certain knowledge of exactly where the lines need to be drawn and who's allowed to think what and what they should wear when they think it.

I live here. I was there. I have my memories and my feelings. I will honor and cherish the memories of the friend I lost in my own way which, as it happens, does NOT include a foam 9/11 finger or a souvenir mouse-pad.

If someone visits the museum and wants to bring home a trinket why do I have to judge them or their levels of taste? I don't. It's none of my G-D business. And when THEY buy a foam 9/11 finger it doesn't diminish ME or my memories or my experience. Not one tiny, little bit.

In my opinion.

[FindingNamo]

So that's great. Stuffed rescue dogs don't seem trivializing and commercializing of a tragedy to you. What G-D effect does the fact that to many people it seems crass have on *your* life?

[tazber]

So you don't find it at all disrespectful to the 3,000 innocent men and women who were murdered that they have added a souvenir shop to what is for all practical purposes a cemetery?

I also lost people on that day. I also was there during this atrocity.

But it's not about me. Or you.

It's about having a certain amount of decency that should preclude turning a solemn memorial into a Great American Shopping Opportunity.

It's about not devaluing a national tragedy.

[NYadgal]

^ Agree.

[FindingNamo]

You see Addison, this thread is as much about the state of this nation and what it means to be a citizen in this participatory democracy at this exact moment in time as it is about a shop selling foreign-made tragedy tchotchkes. If you're exhausted, I'd say join the club.

[broadwayguy2]

A trinket, a momento, a memory piece is one thing... I find zero fault in that. Some of the stuff they sell is just downtight uncomfortable.
And yes, it is about much more than this one event even.. The idea that EVERYTHING is for commercial profit and gain with no thought to decency, to respect... It's disturbing. Everything is a dollar sign. This event, those people, our collective experiences should not be dollar signs in someone's eye.

[Jane2]

That's what we've devolved into. Any way to make money is fair game in the US. Can you imagine people who return home after visiting the memorial showing their friends - "Hey look, I got a foam finger and a stuffed animal at Ground Zero!!!!!"

[Everlast85]

The Oklahoma City Memorial gift shop had goddamn Christmas ornaments...it's the same thing. Where's the anger?

http://store.oklahomacitynationalmemorial.org/gift.html?p=1

[Sutton Ross]

If you think it's of poor taste, like most people, don't buy stuff at the gift shop. Sadly, it's the only thing you can do at this point. If people want a mouse pad, or a rescue dog made in China...they will buy them