Flight 93 Memorial Unveiling Stirs Controversy

Last month's public unveiling of a national memorial to those who died aboard Flight 93, the jetliner brought down in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, by passengers struggling with the plane's hijackers on September 11, 2001, elicited heated debate. Critics of the competition-winning design by Paul Murdoch Architects of Los Angeles and Nelson Byrd Woltz Landscape Architects of Charlottesville, Virginia, argue that the scheme of red maples planted in an arc—deemed the "Crescent of Embrace" by the designers—evokes the red-crescent symbol of Islam, the religion associated with the plane's terrorist hijackers. Others, including some victims' family members, disagree. According to a statement released by the chairman of the memorial's federal advisory commission in reaction to the controversy, the design will evolve over the next six months and "opportunities for public participation" will be part of that process.