April 22, 2007

This week, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg made a significant declaration: the World Trade Center Memorial Foundation had reached a key benchmark -- $300 million in donations raised for the eventual memorial.

It's about time, certainly. Six years of politics, pain, contentiousness, misstarts, and reluctance to compromise have delayed the site's construction and hampered the healing. When my wife, daughter, and I stayed at the Millennium Hotel for two nights last month, our room peered down onto the maddening hollow of the reconstruction site. I was left with a sense of profound helplessness and, as I feel every time I venture downtown, a visceral, barely suppressed rage toward the attackers, even now, six years on.

Next week, the TriBeCa Film Festival opens. For five years, it has been a beacon of revitalization for the area. But as the festival's co-producer Jane Rosenthal asserted in the Times on Friday, "We're still living with a pit."

If you would like to help donate to the WTC Memorial Fund, CLICK HERE.