As part of this morning’s memorial service that marked the third anniversary of September 11, 2001, family members descended the ramp that leads to the base of the World Trade Center complex. Once there, they placed flowers and rose pedals into a makeshift reflecting pool. After placing their flowers, some family members kneeled and prayed, others consoled one another – and some simply sat down on the sacred ground and sobbed uncontrollably.

When I saw everyone’s faces on television who descended into the base of the site at today’s ceremony, they looked exactly the same as they did last year when I was there. Last year, I was one of the thousands who walked down the long ramp into the very bottom of a site that used to house the most elaborate superstructure in the modern world – that was reduced to nothing but a flaming pile of twisted rubble in only 102 minutes.

When I got to the place where I was to set down my white rose, which last year was a simple circle rather than a reflecting pool, I said a prayer for Doug and the other 2,748 innocent people who lost their lives on those sixteen sacred acres. I then sat down, closed my eyes and placed my hand on the ground. Believe me when I say that the feeling I got was so powerful that when I opened my eyes – I had to find my bearings because for a brief moment – I actually forgot where I was.

That sacred site is where the families of the 2,749 loved ones go to remember the loss they all suffered at the hands of inhuman monsters. But this year’s ceremony marks the last time that the families can place flowers at the base of the site where their loved ones died – because by September 11, 2005 – construction of the new “Freedom Tower” will have already begun.

The 1,776-foot tower, which will be, when completed, the world’s tallest building, had its cornerstone set in place on July 4th of this year. Despite its size, it will only be a part of the overall complex planned for the 16-acre World Trade Center site, which will include the aforementioned world’s tallest building, a cultural complex, a new Con Edison electrical substation, a state-of-the-art two billion dollar permanent railway transit hub with an elaborate underground concourse…

…oh yeah – and a memorial to the victims of the terror attacks.

Until the day I die, I will never understand how people can justify building anything on that site. Ground Zero is called that for a reason. It is a place where people like Mukul Kumar Agarwala, Donald Walter Robertson, Jr., Elkin Yuen, Bella J. Bhukhan, Stephen J. Cangialosi, Gopalakrishnan Varadhan – Douglas Farnum – and 2,742 other people gave their lives for no other reason but hatred, jealously and ignorance. It is a place where I have seen family members come to mourn and collapse in agony as soon as they arrived there. It is a place that showed American pride and patriotism in a way never seen before – and it is a place that should be considered as Holy and untouchable as the site of the Oklahoma City Bombing.

After all, until the final piece of debris was removed from the site – it was a graveyard…

…but none of this matters, because construction of the Freedom Tower begins this fall – and after the Freedom Tower is built and it is time to remember future September 11th “anniversaries”, the families will have to mourn in a designated spot – probably next to a souvenir stand and a sushi bar.

Incidentally, in an interview with the New York Post, State Economic Development Head Charles Gargano said, of the planned construction for the World Trade Center complex, “We’re a city of skyscrapers, and we’ll keep building them.”

Go ahead Mr. Gargano – keep telling yourself that.