Matt Gurney: After 9/11, the U.S. began quietly surveying national monuments. In France, Notre Dame will benefit from similar, powerful tools of science and engineering.
From a very young age, I was fascinated by New York City. I was bursting with questions about it; when I was maybe eight years old, my bemused parents got me a gigantic hardcover book of photos of the city’s sights. I must have flipped through it, front to back, a thousand times. But I didn’t actually make it to the city until 1999, when I was in high school, as part of a class trip.
The recovery may take years; I may never find myself inside a rebuilt Notre Dame. But it can be rebuilt. It will be; France’s billionaires are lining up to cover the costs. That touchstone of Western civilization isn’t going anywhere. I’ve been pondering that sense of relief, wondering why it’s so strong. Not long after the Sept. 11 attacks, I returned to New York. The gap in the skyline wasn’t just obvious, it was painful.
At the National Archives, a Cold War-vintage system to rapidly lower the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence from their exhibit into a nuclear-blast proof vault was replaced with a newer design. The Americans understood that value of cultural continuity. What cannot be replaced must be saved, and what can be replaced must be replaced faithfully.
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