Great pictures, especially the one of the Marine with his head in his hand.

Monkeyrotica, aren't there only "reflecting pools" under each bench? Unless some of these so-called tourists have outrageous limbo skills, I think walking in said pools will be quite difficult.

One more memorial to war and violence in a city where 6.000 thousand people die of street violence every year...

poignant pictures...but it's interesting to note that the memorials we build seem to get larger and larger in scope as time goes by. small-scale statuary to memorialize a moment have given way to memorials that cover acreage.

no opinion there, just a comment

Beautiful pictures...wonderful site..so sorry we missed it by a few days. Imagine a 3 year old has a bench ..lots of parents will take the time to search her out.
As far as people putting their feet in the water it's called respect. You either have it or you don't. But it can be learned.

One more memorial to war and violence in a city where 6.000 thousand people die of street violence every year...

Gah? WTF are you talking about? 169 people were murdered in DC in 2006, not 6,000!

i think he meant to say that 6,000 people die every day from boredom in NoVa.

Reid: I shart myself laughing. Then I died inside.

Monkey: It does looks clean, but notice it is just a phallic ball topped obelisk, not a field full of benches, so the opportunity for filth is limited (I am amazed someone has not tried to roll the 1812 ball off the top by now). Also, being little rock no one walks anywhere and a human has probably not actually gotten out of the car and walked by that monument since 1935.

The Limey bastards burned our whole city, and we lost some 2,000 brave men in that war, and all we give them is a monument slightly smaller than the average persons TV... it's a disrespectful world I tell you. I will not forgive the damned Brits until they send me two first class tickets to Heathrow as reparations.

mjl: agreed, the lack of parking lots is a nice thing.

And re: the memorial.

I'm sure a lot of people will have intense feelings towards it, and I do not mean to diminish their pain in the least bit, but I can't stand this movement towards turning memorials into graveyards without the coffins.

The first of this type is that dreadful Oklahoma City Bombing memorial. Ever since then, families of victims of tragedies like this have tended to insist on some personalization of the memorial. This is bad in my opinion for a couple reasons. The first of which is aesthetic. We end up with a field of diving boards. I mean, I guess it's ok, but I does it hold a candle in terms of beauty to the Vietnam Memorial (which achieved personalization without letting it overwhelm the design) or the Iwo Jima Memorial? I don't think so. There's rarely an overarching aesthetical goal. Normally the best they can do for overall theme is rather morbid frankly; in OKC it was meant to capture the exact second of the blast, at the Pentagon it's meant to capture the flight path. It's like making a memorial for the titanic look like an iceberg.

In the end it seems that the primary goal with these types of memorials is to carve out a specific spot for each victim's family as a focal point of their grief. Like I said, I think it's perfectly natural for families to want this, but it has the tendency to turn these memorials into cemeteries. Maybe that's what people want, but I'm not a fan.

"what's with the decimal point in there, carlosqc"

I imagine he's European of some extraction, where many of them use a decimal instead of a comma.

Plus they rarely shower.

There's a War of 1812 memorial in DC?

Look, we ran the Irish out of DC for a reason: they kept boiling the cabbage to a thin paste and their leprechaun women wouldn't give it up.

The "memorial" to the Irish is in the hearts and minds of every American who can drink beer and start a fight over their sister dating a black guy.

It's also in every fake-ass Irish "pub" and retarded theme restaurant in every stripmall in the land.

Here's what concerns me about the Pentagon memorial: if the benches have the names of the dead on them, isn't it disrespectful to sit on them? Using the graveyard analogy, it's like you are sitting on their memory, or headstone, or what have you. But I'll reserve full judgement until I see it in person, as it might have a very different feel vs. the pictures of it.

wow, will585, maybe you need to take some anger management classes.

just because some of us haven't been there yet doesn't make us soulless assholes (i have other proof that documents that, thank you very much).

maybe when it's been open for more than 3 days, we'll all have a chance to go by and look at it.

until then, we're allowed to have as many opinions and allow to discuss this as much as we want.

got it, mi amigo?

will585: it's ironic that you're entitled to give your opinion about whether or not everyone else is allowed to have an opinion.

my opinion is that you should learn how to spell quiet. just an opinion... :)

I dunno, will585. You've set the bar pretty high. If I go to the memorial and I don't weep, does that mean I'm an a**hole or just dead inside? Because I can't think of a single memorial I've been to that's made me cry. And yet I never fail to cry like a little bi**h during that cartoon of Marc Anthony the bulldog and the little kitten he adopts that he thinks has been killed in the blender and turned into cat-shaped cookies.

and asshole?

i'm going to ride your ass on these grammar errors if you're going to tell me i'm not allowed to have opinions. my opinion is that you need a grammar checker.

Along time ago I was an art history major, and we were allowed - hell, encouraged - to have opinions about various works of art and cultural artifacts (including memorials) without having seen them in person. We'd look at slides and photographs and discuss the artist's worldview, culture, technique, history and a whole bunch of other stuff that won't really land you a high paying job. But my point is, you can absolutely have an informed opinion on a work of art without having experienced it in person. The opinion may be further refined by seeing the work (my response to actually seeing Guernica was "holy shit that's bigger than I thought"), but the initial opinion is still valid.

Put it this way: the Pentagon and everyone else who had to approve the Pentagon Memorial approved it based on renderings, maquettes, architectural drawings and the like. They formed an opinion on the design's concept and merit without seeing it in person (as it didn't exist yet.) No insult intended to the dead nor to the survivors, but you can have an opinion is all I am saying.

Bethesdaist,

You make a very good point that with art it is possible to see renderings or other images and form an opinion without having seen the art in person. I stand corrected. My first thought when seeing the Mona Lisa for the first time was “Damn that’s small”.

Reid,

After reading your post and going to the memorial again. I have a feeling that as the trees grow the memorial will become more and more like a graveyard in many ways.

No you are not an ass but I have a feeling I have been acting the ass by the way I have posted on this subject.

IMGoph,

You misunderstood it was only YOU that wasn’t allowed an opinion. Not but really, Bethesdaist made a very good point and I stand corrected. My apologies.

And who says it’s a suit? Maybe I am just furry.

Ok now that I am back in good graces I do have some concerns after going twice.

That gravel is going to be a bitch to keep from getting in all the pools and spread around on the walk ways.

You can not read the names on the benchs at night.

And how big will those trees get? Wont the roots start to damage the benchs and pools under neath them?

Yeah it was a mistake, I meant 6 thousand people died in DC as a result of crimes in 2007.

And you're STILL wrong. There were 8,320 REPORTED INSTANCES of violent crime in DC in 2007, but only 181 homicides.