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INTRODUCTION
Since 2011, late each March, a pear tree has blossomed amid the still-bare swamp white oaks that line the waterfalls of "Reflecting Absence," the memorial at Ground Zero. This pear tree is called the Survivor's Tree, and it is the only object, organic or inorganic, that stood on the site before 2001 and stands there still.1
The development of Ground Zero has been the subject of much scholarly attention. Among the countless articles published in the wake of the events of 9/11, most dealt primarily with its emotional, cultural, and individual impact.2When material aspects were discussed, the focus lay on what was due to be built. Relatively little attention, however, has been given to the tangible, material aspects of the site that remained after the attacks, and which became the center of an ongoing power struggle. This article argues that various consumer groups could, with varying success, substantiate their protest against the proposed site development by invoking the importance of objects on the site.
In what has been termed a "spatial turn" in the social sciences, scholars have increasingly turned to the study of space and place, and their role and usage, since the early 1990s.3This development was largely a reaction to the realization that space and place seemed so ordinary as to cause a kind of myopia. Overlooking space is a common but notable error: not only is each life, each act spatial; space is an a priori exigency of it.4Spaces are lived in, gazed upon; they form the arena for physical human interaction and reference points in dialectic exchange. In short, spaces are consumed.
John Urry noted that the act of spatial consumption remains relatively underanalyzed.5Many authors only go as far as to note spaces of consumption: spaces, especially urban sites, that are built or developed to enable commercial consumption of other products.6But spaces, through design, intent, and materiality, invite and prohibit entrance; they invite and prohibit the consumption of its features, visually and haptically, by groups of users.7When it has been established that spaces are consumed, then it follows that they are also produced. When Henri Lefebvre's La production de...