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by TOM TOPOUSIS
The union representing New York's Bravest yesterday demanded that the controversial International Freedom Center be removed from Ground Zero.
In another blow to the cultural plans for Ground Zero, Uniformed Firefighters Association President Stephen Cassidy said the Freedom Center would "diminish the sacrifices that the 343 members of the FDNY made on 9/11. That is unacceptable."
Cassidy sent a letter announcing the UFA's position to Memorial Foundation director Gretchen Dykstra on July 27, but union officials made it public only yesterday.
"We cannot help but feel that if the International Freedom Center is to be located alongside the memorial, our membership, along with our 9/11 families, will come out strongly in opposition to supporting your foundation," Cassidy wrote.
Gov. Pataki and the Lower Manhattan Development Corp. have been under intense pressure to drop plans to include the Freedom Center and the Drawing Center in a museum building next to the Ground Zero memorial.
Family members of 9/11 victims have blasted the two cultural institutions, saying they could include anti-American exhibits. Instead, the family members have argued for a facility more clearly devoted to the attacks.
Debra Burlingame, whose airline-pilot brother was killed during the 9/11 attacks and who now serves on the foundation board, said the firefighters' announcement is more proof that most Americans don't want a cultural center at Ground Zero.
"This statement on the part of New York's Bravest shows that they share our deepest concerns that the story of what happened that day will be obscured by the International Freedom Center," said Burlingame.
Cassidy said yesterday the union's leaders haven't yet decided what action they will take to block fund-raising by the Memorial Foundation if the IFC is to be a part of Ground Zero.
Pressure from family groups has already put the squeeze on the Freedom Center project.
The proposed building for the facility has been downsized 30 percent and LMDC Chairman John Whitehead has given the IFC until Sept. 23 to come up with specific programming plans. The Drawing Center is already seeking a new site.
"We're deeply saddened that the Uniformed Firefighters Association would withdraw their support for the memorial to honor all those lost on 9/11, including the sacrifice of the firefighters," said foundation spokeswoman Lynn Rasic.
* A dozen families of 9/11 victims will announce a federal lawsuit today against the city over what they claim is the burial of their loved ones' remains at Fresh Kills Landfill, where trade center material was sorted.
The families believe fragments of remains too small to be caught in sifters used to search rubble are still at the landfill and should be buried in a cemetery.
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TIME TO PULL THE PLUG
The Uniformed Firefighters Association's decision yesterday to withdraw support for the World Trade Center Memorial Foundation, citing two controversial museums proposed there, may have ended the threat of institutionalized activism at Ground Zero.
Good for the UFA.
The union's "membership and our 9/11 families believe that the memorial design will take away from the memory and sacrifice of the firefighters who bravely gave their lives during the most horrific terrorist attacks our country has had to face," UFA President Steve Cassidy said.
Good for Steve Cassidy.
It's going to be especially hard now for the International Freedom Center and the Drawing Center to buck the opposition to their presence at Ground Zero.
The UFA speaks from the moral high ground: 343 firefighters died on 9/11.
Interestingly, the UFA announcement came on the very day that The New York Times — among the staunchest backers of the IFC and the Drawing Center — was reduced to attacking the sister of a pilot killed on one of the 9/11 planes, Debra Burlingame.
In a scathing editorial, the paper said criticizing the IFC's plans "may mean little more than subjecting them, essentially, to the veto of Debra Burlingame."
"Neither Ms. Burlingame nor her followers can be allowed to dictate the future [of Ground Zero]," it continued.
But Debra Burlingame is "dictating" nothing. Neither are the firefighters.
They are simply insisting that anti-American activism of the sort implicitly embedded in the IFC and the Drawing Center is inappropriate at any memorial site. And they are right.
The Times should be ashamed.
Happily, the tide is shifting: The Drawing Center has all but withdrawn, and the IFC was read the riot act last week by Gov. Pataki's main man at the Lower Manhattan Development Corp., Chairman John Whitehead.
If, by Sept. 23, officials aren't satisfied with the IFC's plans, "we will find another use or tenant . . . for that space," Whitehead said.
Again, for the record, there's nothing wrong with critical debate or even negative portrayals of America.
Just not at Ground Zero, where nearly 3,000 innocent people died.
The Times, of course, thrives on trashing America. And where better to do that than at Ground Zero?
But this paper has run scores of editorials, columns and news reports on the issue. So have numerous other publications.
Web sites are abuzz.
Plus, folks all over have joined the movement; 40,000 have signed its petition. (Indeed, grassroots America is taking note: Today, the tiny town of Anthony, Kan., will join in a "Take Back the Memorial" rally. Way to go, Anthony!)
At home, three local congressmen have threatened to work to bar federal funding for the memorial. Philanthropists, too, are balking — as Whitehead relentlessly reminds everyone.
So it's hardly just Burlingame and family members. And now add the UFA, representing 22,000 firefighters and wielding exquisite moral authority, as a foe.
Ironically, the Times, for all its personal vitriol toward Burlingame, essentially admitted she's right: that a chief concern is that the center will be "a place where people engage in free speech."
Now, three cheers for "free speech."
But there's a place for unfettered, raucous, rollicking, disrespectful-for-effect political debate — and that place, purely and simply, is not at the Ground Zero memorial.
To be sure, the Times got one thing right yesterday: It decried Pataki's lack of strong leadership regarding the two museums. He should have pulled the plug on them weeks ago.
So here's hoping the UFA's announcement will give him the cover he apparently feels he needs to do the right thing.
Which is to exorcise the IFC and the Drawing Center from Ground Zero, once and for all.
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