If the National September 11 Memorial & Museum gets you down — all those unbearable, last-words-to-loved-ones recordings, bloodied shoes and falling-body images — get over it with “comfort food,” seasonal farm products and locally made booze.
The just-opened museum unflinchingly, unforgettably, enshrines the horror of 9/11 for future generations. But the message sent by plans for a café on top of the horrific artifacts is:
Never forget . . . to pig out!
This summer, Danny Meyer’s Union Square Events is to open an 80-seat Pavilion Cafe inside the museum.
When I read that it would have “New York-made draft beers and American wines on tap,” I thought I’d had a few too many myself.
The great restaurateur promises a “soothing” experience, modeled on the “contemplative” spirit of a tea room.
Whew!
But the brains behind the museum apparently regard their cathartic masterpiece as just another cultural venue like MoMA or the Whitney, where Meyer also runs restaurants.
I can go for tomato soup and grilled cheese after staring at Picassos for a few hours. My appetite isn’t the same after a tour through hell.
Memorial/museum president Joe Daniels argues that such solemn sites as Gettysburg and Israel’s Yad Vashem have restaurants, too.
But Gettysburg was fought 151 years ago, and Yad Vashem is not at the site where the Holocaust took place.
The 9/11 Museum is where the terrorist attack took place a mere 13 years ago — and where remains of 1,115 unidentified victims are stored.
“We’re not doing this for crass or commercial reasons,” Meyer told me. In fact, the cafe is supposed to make money, although Meyer says it will pay the museum a “significantly above-market” rent and a percentage of proceeds, but, “We’re not at liberty” to discuss terms.
But the issue isn’t just profit. A gift shop selling tacky Twin Towers tchotchkes is inappropriate enough. A bar and grill by any name on top of burnt fire trucks and human ashes is just plain gross.