If You Don’t Work There Then Grover Norquist Will Have Won

Grover Norquist likes to talk a big game about drowning stuff in bathtubs, but really he should just make them work in the Freedom Tower:

Employees of state and federal agencies that may be among the first occupants of the Freedom Tower said yesterday that for many of them, horrible memories of Sept. 11 were still too fresh to consider a return to ground zero. Their emotional responses indicated that engineering a government-led reoccupation of the site may be more difficult than public officials recognize.

“I will not be able to work there,” said Ely Yulman, a tax auditor for the New York State Departmentportationion [sic] and Finance, which lost 40 employees in the World Trade Center. Mr. Yulman said he survived the attack only because he was out of his office in the south tower on the morning of Sept. 11.

“I have strong feelings of personal sorrow,” Mr. Yulman said. “The people who were there on Sept. 11, 100 percent they will oppose this idea.”

Alicia Ferrer, a tax auditor who lives in Chelsea, said she escaped that day because she decided to run an errand before reporting to her office on the 87th floor of the south tower. Her memories of the apocalyptic scene on the streets of Lower Manhattan — the falling bodies, abandoned vehicles and scattered shoes — are still quite vivid, she said as she arrived at a Sept. 11 memorial service for union members last evening.

“If my life depended on it, I couldn’t go there,” Ms. Ferrer said. “It would be beyond imaginable to put someone back there. If you had to go back there every day where you know their souls and spirits have to be, I don’t know. I couldn’t do it every single day.”

The Daily News’ Michael Daly has a similar idea to let the FBI and CIA earn their keep. I won’t even make a joke about the Saudi Embassy . . . is there anyone out there who would want to work in this building?