I recommend W.M. Akers's piece in last week's New York Observer on plans for the 9/11 Memorial Museum.

I recall my first visit to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, in Washington, in the early 1990s, which proved to me how architecture could actually provide a completely devastating and overpowering experience. So moved was I on that occasion that I remember phoning a friend (in the hierarchy of Time Warner, where a worked at the time), whose father was on the board of the museum, and said, "Every day, I see atrocity pictures coming out of Bosnia and Serbia and Croatia. There should be a space in the museum devoted to modern-day genocide." She agreed. And within two years, with her help and with the impetus of Time magazine, a stunning and provocative show was mounted. (I was director of photography at Life at the time and had no involvement in the curation, which was the work of Jim Gaines, Michelle Stephenson, their colleagues, and a dozen or so photographers, many associated with Time).

As it so happens, in last month's issue of Vanity Fair, Matt Tyrnauer wrote movingly about the moment Philip Johnson first laid eyes upon fellow architect Frank Gehry's Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain. The year was 1998. And Johnson was 91 years old. Writes Tyrnauer: "He stood in the atrium of the massive, titanium-clad structure...as TV cameras from Charlie Rose captured him gesturing...and saying, 'Architecture is not about words. It's about tears.' Breaking into heavy sobs, he added, 'I get the same feeling in Chartres Cathedral.' "

Trumpets, clarions, strings, harps. This, Dear Reader, is the 250th posting on this website. Just FYI: To access the Postings Archive from 2006 to today, click on the "Archives" link at the bottom of the center column.

….ALSO: The Downtown Mosque (Islamic Cultural Center) Controversy continues unabated. Yours truly weighed in on the subject weeks ago, stating what should be obvious. This is a free country: Bigots, Get Beyond It!

…AND FINALLY: Come 2014, it looks like Conde Nast, the company which owns Vanity Fair—the magazine I work for--will be moving to 1 World Trade Center a.k.a. The Freedom Tower a.k.a. whatever-name-eventually-evolves. For all the hassles and angst inherent in the southward migration, this move is great for the city, great for the journalism business (and New York business in general), and a sign of corporate and civic boldness.

Yesterday I gave a talk about Watching the World Change before several hundred at the Chautauqua Institution in Chautauqua, New York. The book was honored as this week’s CLCS offering so dozens of people in the community here have read it.

Founded in 1874, it is the longest-running book club in American history. And an idyllic retreat for the arts, with a spiritual bent. A lakeside paradise.

(The Chautauqua Daily ran a piece about the lecture, by Sarah Toth.)

Here is a link to the audio of the talk!

There was a report today, apropos of Independence Day, that one of the flags unearthed from the rubble at Ground Zero has been donated to the National September 11 Memorial and Museum.

In fact, I know of a half dozen significant American flags recovered from Ground Zero in the days and weeks after 9/11, though no one has yet to locate the actual banner from Thomas Franklin’s iconic “flag-raising photograph”—showing three firefighters hoisting the colors at the end of the day on September 11. (The definitive story of the famous flag is explored in last chapter of Watching the World Change.)

Best wishes to all for a peaceful 4th of July.

I haven’t read it yet, but my spiritually engaged and enlightened friend Shelley Waln recommends a new book by a close associate of hers: Bonnie McEneaney’s Messages: Signs, Visits and Premonitions from Loved Ones Lost on 9/11, just out from William Morrow.

Close readers of Watching the World Change might remember the section about Robbie Morrell, who lost her husband, George, in the September 11 attacks—and then felt George’s presence through encounters that she had with a psychic (pages 273-274). A similarly gripping and otherworldly story is described in the footnote on page 393-394, in which my friend Don Johnston discusses an experience of “connecting” with Tommy Palazzo, who also perished that day.

Finally: indications of a preliminary settlement deal for rescue, relief, and reclamation workers suffering health problems as a result of their work at Ground Zero. This, after the scuttling of the settlement deal in March.

Well, at least there's one silver lining: it was, in fact, a swifter outcome than the settlement of the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill. That deal took 20 years—two decades for compensation to reach those whose homes, lives, and livelihoods were ruined by the Alaskan oil spill. (And when the BP blowout is finally contained in the Gulf of Mexico, how long will it take to settle that class-action suit?)

If you get a chance, please check out this blog post I wrote for VanityFair.com called, "A Kinder, Gentler P.L.O.?," which has raised hackles among many of my Jewish pals from Chicago. (Full disclosure: I am Jewish...and from Chicago.)

The Times’s Clyde Haberman has a thoughtful column that answers the question, “Should a new Islamic center be allowed to be built close to Ground Zero?” The answer: Absolutely. “It is guaranteed in the First Amendment, the same one that ensures freedom of religion, with no asterisk that says ‘*except for Islam.’ It is the same amendment that allows a strip joint and a porno shop to exist a couple of blocks from hallowed ground.”

Haberman also points out that “since long before the Islamist terrorist attack of Sept. 11, 2001, a storefront mosque has been sitting on West Broadway in TriBeCa, a dozen blocks from the World Trade Center. No one seems to have ever minded its being there.”

The hysteria surrounding the proposed Islamic center has been misplaced, the public energy wasteful and debilitating. Moreover, the new institutions that grow up around the site should be expanding--not limiting--connections and understanding, building bridges between religious, ethnic, cultural, and social communities. This sturm und drang has some of the same poisonous tenor that surrounded opposition to the proposed International Freedom Center near Ground Zero, a flawed but virtuous endeavor, which died on the vine in 2005.

...On this remembrance day, I recommend a look at Alan Chin's images of the ceremonies surrounding the return to Dover Air Force Base of the remains of U.S. soldiers fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.

To all: a reflective and peaceful Memorial Day.

A must-read article by the New York Times's Jesse KcKinley about Jennifer Karady's stunningly innovative exhibition, now on display at SF Camerawork, a gallery in San Francisco, using staged documentary-style photography as a way of channeling war veterans' post-conflict trauma.

Photographer Celia Shapiro has never before shared her images of the World Trade Center site, taken on the verge of the millennium, from 1990-2000, all prior to the 9/11 attacks. She has now put her quite compelling work up online and they are shown here for the first time.