Decision Needs to be Made on 9/11 Memorial Names

Decision Needs To Be Made On 9/11 Memorial Names

(AP) NEW YORK Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Tuesday that "less is more" when it comes to the sensitive issue of how victims should be identified on the Sept. 11 memorial. "None of us can feel what a relative feels, of somebody lost, but the memorial is for the country, it is for the world, it is for all New Yorkers," Bloomberg said in his first public remarks on the contentious issue since he was named last week to head the World Trade Center Memorial Foundation, which is raising money for the memorial and finalizing its design. "We'll have to come to some resolution and if the parties can't resolve it, then I, then the decision maker, the decision has to be made and it will be made." Many family members, supported by city fire and police unions, have lobbied for two years to group names of the nearly 3,000 people killed on Sept. 11, 2001, by where they worked and died, and to list their ages, the company they worked for or the plane they were on next to their names. "What is so wrong with letting people know that the majority of these people died in the prime of their life?" said Edie Lutnick, whose 36-year-old brother, Gary, was among 658 victims from Cantor Fitzgerald. Bloomberg said memorial architect Michael Arad's design may support a more minimalist approach. "I've always been a believer in the less is more, particularly when it comes to things that are trying to encourage you to think," he said. "And that to me is what Michael Arad's design really was all about -- the fact that the voids are there, you've got to think about what was here and why was it taken away from us." Arad proposed listing the victims randomly to show the chaos of the day, but has said he was open to further iscussion. Bloomberg is in charge of fundraising for the memorial, which officials hope to open in 2009.