Visitors Don’t Defile Ground Zero

I just returned from a short visit to New York City and was thankful for the instructive article “Ground Zero” (March 17). I arrived at Pier 16 at South Street Seaport about 45 minutes before the 11 a.m. ticket distribution, received my ticket for 12:30 p.m. for the viewing platform, walked part of the perimeter of the site, went to the corner of Church and Vesey streets and saw the many memorials and shrinesvisible around the area.

Contrary to Pam Edwards’ letter (“Ground Zero Is No Tour Destination,” March 31), a visit to the World Trade Center site does not in any way diminish it as hallowed ground. Visitors of all ages and from throughout the world showed only respect and were clearly moved by the experience. Rather than taking on morbid undertones or evoking the feeling of gawking, it made this cataclysmic disaster more real and offered an opportunity for reflection and catharsis. In hushed tones and in a polyglot of languages as well as in silence, individuals and groups made their pilgrimages, often stopping to write a prayer or message on the plywood construction.

Just as visiting the graves at Normandy or Pearl Harbor makes one reflect on the consequences of war, one hopes the impact of this site will make visitors ponder the consequences of evil, hatred and terrorism.

ALISON MAYERSOHN

Los Alamitos

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Gettysburg, Shiloh and the beaches of Normandy traditionally draw tourists not to gawk but to reflect and remember the significance of those hallowed grounds. These are places to inculcate in ourselves a collective resolve to do what is in our power to prevent these tragedies from recurring. These are places we can go and pay our respects to those who died and to honor the heroes and perhaps say a prayer for the dead and their loved ones.

Ground zero is for the ages.

STEPHEN GATES

San Clemente

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I think Pam Edwards may not have considered why Americans may want to visit ground zero. I think many of those who visit the site come to pay their respects, as I did when I paid a visit to the friends of my father who are entombed at the Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor.

Last Easter we visited the graves at the American and German cemeteries near the Normandy beaches. I was honoring those who had fallen there and being thankful for the freedom that allowed us to be there.

We are planning a trip to Krakow, Poland, and it will include a visit to Auschwitz. I know this will not be a walk on the beach in Maui but a reflection on the evil that was done to others by a few misguided leaders.

PHIL RUTKOWSKI

Huntington Beach