Washington's Other Monuments is a photoblog by photographer Lloyd Wolf chronicling "the many sad memorials erected by friends & family to honor murder and other violence victims in the Washington DC area. These spontaneous, homemade, heartfelt creations are found on streets throughout the region. They are often the only physical tribute to the many slaying victims." Washington Post article. [via Eddie Campbell]
posted on Apr 4, 2008 - View this thread

One hundred and thirty years ago today, George Armstrong Custer divided his forces in the face of a superior enemy and rode to his death at the Little Big Horn. The actual battle lasted about 15 minutes, but the fight over Custer's legacy is going into its second century. Visit the battle memorial (webcam view) explore the archeology of the site, or read an Indian account of the battle. The battle has attracted artists as varied as Charlie Russell (this poster of his painting was distributed by Anheiser Busch and hung in bars across the United States), Thomas Hart Benton, and Kicking Bear (Mato Wanartaka). Little Big Horn is a lonely place today.
posted on Jun 25, 2006 - View this thread

Following in the footsteps of Gipper followers -- The Ronald Reagan Legacy Project is on a mission to put the Gipper on the ten-spot and rename a road in every U.S. County after Ronald Reagan. Kenny Hill of AOL's gay blog Worth Repeating has his own mission: name a landmark in every state after Brokeback Mountain.
posted on Apr 28, 2006 - View this thread

"My daughter and I, searching for comfort, spent many hours looking at memorial sites for others, especially children. It seemed to ease the pain a little knowing that there were others who knew and understood our pain and that through the internet we could be united with them."

Haye's Friends in Heaven links to a variety of websites complete with heart-wrenching graphics and bizarre animations. You can vote on your favorite; winners recieve nightlights.
posted on Feb 8, 2005 - View this thread

Bittersweet Bears "When a loved one becomes a memory, make the memory a treasure." Teddy Bears made from the clothing of a loved one.
posted on Dec 29, 2004 - View this thread

Munich Bans Memorial Plaques Munich has decided to ban memorial plaques to Jewish, Sinti and German citizens deported and murdered during World War Two. Jewish leaders, fearful that the plaques would stir up anti-Semitic fervor, supported the ban. These plaques are the work of a German artist, Gunter Demnig. ”He first had the idea in the early 1990s when he was unveiling a memorial for the Sinti and Roma victims of the Holocaust. “An elderly woman approached him and insisted that "no Gypsies ever lived here". "It is so easy for people to deny something. I wanted to ensure that this would not happen," he says. (BBC).” This reminder of the holocaust brought to mind the Pinkas Synagogue in Prague, as well as the Viet Nam Memorial and the AIDS quilt -- monuments that really changed me.
posted on Aug 14, 2004 - View this thread

Taphophiles, Rejoice! Northstar Galleries offers a collection of grave images from around the world. Of particular interest is an essay and gallery on "Sensuality in Memorial Art." But if potentially NSFW stone nudes are not your thing, you can search the Farber Gravestone Collection's archive of over thirteen thousand image database of pre-1800 American gravestones, more than enough for a melancholy afternoon.
posted on Apr 12, 2004 - View this thread

Rejected 9/11 Memorial Designs are now online. All 5,201 of them. My favorite is the apple on a spike. Some question the taste of designs that use ghostly jet planes, pez dispenser-like structures or giant red question marks as motifs. Luminaries such as the inventor of the artificial heart and Marky Mark participated. Maybe there's an overlooked work of genius in here. Or maybe not.
posted on Feb 20, 2004 - View this thread

Roadside memorials. Every so often you'll catch one out of the corner of your eye--a makeshift cross on the side of a highway, or flowers tacked to a highway sign, marking a life that ended in that spot. Gives me chills--realistically, probably every single day we pass places where someone breathed their last, but we don't know it. Photographer Bill Sampson takes photographs of roadside memorials--called "descansos" from a Spanish word meaning rest--and collects them on his site. Loved ones are invited to submit memorials of their own. (Link via USA Today Web Guide.)
posted on Nov 5, 2002 - View this thread

Criticism Over WTC Statue Race Issues -- I'm sure many of you are familiar with a recent photo featuring three firefighters raising an American flag over the WTC rubble. Now a company has been commissioned to make a statue of the photo at FDNY Brooklyn Headquarters. In the statue though, the three white men who were originally depicted in the photo have been transformed into one white man, one black man, and one Hispanic man. There has been criticism over whether it is going to far to make these changes in order to be politically correct. Others are saying the statue should be more of a symbolic representation of all ethnicities that sacrificed themselves during this tragedy. What do you think?
posted on Jan 12, 2002 - View this thread

Towers of Light.
"Towers of Light is a proposal for a temporary art action conceived for downtown New York City in response to the September 11, 2001 tragedies"link from the good ppl at www.haddock.org
posted on Oct 16, 2001 - View this thread

Here's your box of dirt. The families of the more than 5,000 victims of the World Trade Center attack will each receive a wooden urn with dirt from the mass graveyard. I know, I know... another story involving the WTC bombings. But this one is struck me as odd.
posted on Oct 3, 2001 - View this thread

A few WTC things to start the day: 1) If you have a desire to move "off the grid" or just simply disappear, has the City of New York got a new program for you! Now you can get yourself declared dead with nothing more than a copy of Acrobat Reader and an ability to lie through your teeth. 2) The arguments over what to replace the WTC with are starting to gather steam. 3) That last piece standing of the WTC has been removed for probable use in a memorial. God please save us from another huge OKC-style Memorial From Hell.
posted on Sep 26, 2001 - View this thread

Since we're posting about memorials and the WTC site, here are some interesting words from Ebert.
posted on Sep 14, 2001 - View this thread

Rebuild It, Bigger! America will find an appropriate way to mourn. But if we must have a shrine or monument for our remorse, let's put it on the 200th floor, right next to the antiaircraft guns.
posted on Sep 14, 2001 - View this thread

Building a Fitting Monument to the Dead and the Living Anyone who has visited the Vietnam Memorial in Washington knows that the most powerful way to celebrate those who died for their country is a simple list of names inscribed in everlasting marble. So how do we go about remembering the many who were killed - and are still dying - by the enemies of freedom? I suggest rebuilding the twin towers as a monument - same height, same dimensions - thereby restoring the Manhattan skyline and defying those who think they destroyed it. It could be a holograph or actually built in stone or bronze. The names of those who died there, in Washington and Pennsylvania, would forever be engraved there. I hate to think of the site being rebuilt as something else and profits being made. What happened should be forever remembered and regretted. The cost would probably not be more than $20 per citizen. What are your ideas about a fitting monument to the fallen?
posted on Sep 13, 2001 - View this thread

I used to be a grave rubber, but after seeing this (warning: slow page load), I'm thinking before long the :cue:cat is going to be the better medium.
posted on May 16, 2001 - View this thread

Tulsa Race Riots of 1921: Who pays? I don't think Oklahoma Gov. Frank Keating's pledge to fundraise for a memorial/museum will suffice as a remedy -- or cut much mustard with survivors and their families. (Background info here.)
posted on Mar 1, 2001 - View this thread

There is no more heartfelt memorial than a big car decal with conspicuous ® and © symbols on it.
posted on Feb 25, 2001 - View this thread

Memorial to those who died of heroin. This is what I got in email today, after, I guess, they found my half-completed story on such a topic: "I was looking on the internet on Google for heroin drug overdose. You can see my daughter's before and after picture on www.ourwall.net. Click on Cheryl Dean born July 11, 1979 overdosed on Oct 5, 1997. Cheryl didn't die but she can't walk, talk, move legs arms or hands is blind and on a feeding tube. She had a cardiac arrest and didn't get enough oxygen to the brain in time."
posted on Oct 8, 2000 - View this thread

Today is Memorial Day
posted on May 29, 2000 - View this thread