I have been and saw lots of this- mainly from those not from the US I must say.

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Many native New Yorkers share your feelings, especially those of us who were near the scene on September 11.

I lost 343 of my brothers that day. The time I went to the memorial, I spoke to a security guard, who had lost his father who was a NYPD officer on 9-11-2001. He told me that visitors have tried to setup blankets and have a picnic at the memorial.

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Remember the next couple of weeks after 9/11 when a cottage industry of people selling tacky souvenirs, t-shirts, and other Chinese-made crap with eagles and American flags on them sprang up?

I remember.

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I was an NYPD first responder that’s battling a few different kinds of WTC cancers atm. My practice, and advice to you, is to simply avoid the area. I know what happened and who did what. I don’t need to go there and be angry again over it.

(For the record, I have a regular Reddit acct but some mod here didn’t like something I said in private and banned me. What it was, I have no idea)

Declaring the footprints to be "hallowed ground" and not rebuilding there was a mistake.

We could've had a good and respectful memorial without setting aside that much space.

We were traumatized it made us short sighted. It's right for people who lost loved ones to have a place to remember them, but we did way too much. It's like leaving a wound open on purpose.

And because it's such a large civic space, and because it's in the middle of a bunch of many other commercial tourist attractions, those of us who still carry various levels of trauma because we were here and watched the towers fall with our own eyes or lost loved ones, we don't get to have the peaceful place to reflect that we should have.

The Vietnam Memorial in DC works because it sets itself apart as a special place, with a single purpose. It would've failed if it was surrounded by hustle and bustle on all sides.

I think it's still fair to be angry at disrespectful tourists, but it's important to understand that the way we as humans choose to make solemn spaces defines whether they succeed at what they were meant to do. Arad and Walker's design doesn't work. The committee that chose it made a mistake. It's understandable that this happened, because we as a city and a society weren't thinking clearly. We felt powerless, we felt like we needed to do something grand and monumental, and I suggest that maybe we didn't. Grief is not grand.

At the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum gift shop, you could buy a souvenir Hiroshima A-bomb Dome Popup Card. I'm not making this up.