Wait. That single word may be one of the most difficult to achieve in our frenetic age, but concerning the memorial at the World Trade Center site, the best advice is to slow down, allow time to pass and our perspective to clear, and then to build: We are simply too close to events to commit to such a seminal urban monument. Despite the fact that a winner may have been selected at the writing of this editorial, until construction has already begun, it is not too late to defer the decision and to consider alternatives.

This is not to undervalue the work of a distinguished jury that has labored through an unimaginable, Herculean process, sifting through 5,201 entries submitted in an outpouring of feeling and creative energy. We owe them all—designers and jurists—a debt of gratitude. Nor is it to categorically deny the value of the eight projects that rose to finalist status: Each, in its own way, answered the specific programmatic demands, occasionally artfully or poetically.