To the Editor:

Dennis Smith ("Take Back the Towers," Op-Ed, April 5) gives voice to the view I think many people outside the New York area have of the current 9/11 memorial effort.

Why is a private corporation in charge of memorializing a major national tragedy? Why isn't the project already under construction? A sensible and agreeable design could have been built by now.

Mr. Smith is correct in urging the use of eminent domain in response to the quicksand into which the memorial seems to have fallen.

Ground zero belongs to the families of the victims; it is an indelible geographic reminder of atrocity, selflessness and despair to the entire country and the world.

Those lost in the attacks deserve a monument designed and built in memory, by the people and for the people.

We deserve it now.

William O. Pate II
Austin, Tex.
April 5, 2006

William Pate

Memorial for the Nation