I stopped in briefly to check out Shikima Riel’s tribute to the World Trade Center in Second Life. It’s not finished, but already I find it difficult to visit. (Direct teleport here.)
The buildings are not finished yet, so what you see are ghostly shells of the structures, which I found chilling. Nearby is a fountain and a tribute center with artwork related to 9/11.
I wasn’t the only one there. Another resident decided that the buildings were a good place to go basejumping with his parachute. Ugh.
More distressing, there is a vintage looking plane a few meters from striking one of the towers! I felt my heart beat faster and anger well up in me.
It’s one thing to build a monument for those who were lost, it’s another to sensationalize the event with a poor re-enactment of it. It’s nauseating.
UPDATE 9/8/06 4pm EST: It looks like the plane got removed! Hurray for sanity and compassion.
Personally, I like the ghost buildings.
You can’t stop people from enjoying them without turning them into a static image… And is that really a good way to deal with them? As buildings they weren’t all that pretty – but they were very, very useful.
Seeing someone able to base jump from a building that someone decided to take away from us is an expression of retaining them in our minds. Like people who cannot walk, but come to SL because they can walk here.
Mostly, I wanted to share an older, similar place a friend built a few years back.
http://singe.telefragged.com/hl2/maps/
http://www.furnation.com/singe/hl2/dm_wtc_singe_v8.zip
I always wanted to visit the buildings, I really like archetecture, and these are a way for me to do so.
The plane was not built by the builder of the towers, according to the poster here:
http://www.sluniverse.com/forums/Topic8544-1-1.aspx
It’s apparently a “joke”.
Wow. What an incredibly insensitive way to make a statement.
There is a trend among some to try and “shock”, although I have to say in this case it isn’t that shocking because it’s been done before, even in Second Life, and it wasn’t very skillful or clever in any way I can detect.