Tuesday marks the final night the Pulse Nightclub will be standing in Orlando. Wednesday morning demolition will begin of the building where 49 people were killed, and more were hurt nearly a decade ago. Cesar Rodriguez was one of the people who survived. “It was, you know, horrific,” Rodriguez said Tuesday. “It’s something you cannot forget.”Rodriguez said Wednesday will be emotional as the Pulse Nightclub is torn down. “But I feel more emotional every time I’m in front of the building,” he said. Though being back there is difficult, Rodriguez said he plans to be there as the building comes down. “In my case, for me it’s something I’ve been wishing a lot, too. That building to disappear,” he said. “Because for us, the people that were trapped in there, it’s something we want to erase, and we don’t want to remember. We don’t want to see anymore. We need to see something better. Something that help us, help people to forget everything,” He said.The cleared land will be the site of the future Pulse memorial. Rodriguez was part of the committee to help design it. He said not all family members and survivors are happy with some of the memorial decisions, including himself. For some, it’s because of the input process or plans for the design. For others, it’s because of a void a memorial could never fill. What Rodriguez calls a lack of justice. “You want to feel a big relief, and many, many of the families, they don’t feel like that,” Rodriguez said. “They feel betrayed. They feel… angry. And for us, for the survivors, we feel like trash because we never going to forget everything we have in our minds, and mostly because the justice is not is not happening.”Demolition of the building is set to start at 9 a.m. and finish by noon. Debris removal will take several days. Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer said construction could begin on the new memorial as early as September.
ORLANDO, Fla. —
Tuesday marks the final night the Pulse Nightclub will be standing in Orlando.
Wednesday morning demolition will begin of the building where 49 people were killed, and more were hurt nearly a decade ago.
Cesar Rodriguez was one of the people who survived.
“It was, you know, horrific,” Rodriguez said Tuesday. “It’s something you cannot forget.”
Rodriguez said Wednesday will be emotional as the Pulse Nightclub is torn down.
“But I feel more emotional every time I’m in front of the building,” he said.
Though being back there is difficult, Rodriguez said he plans to be there as the building comes down.
“In my case, for me it’s something I’ve been wishing a lot, too. That building to disappear,” he said. “Because for us, the people that were trapped in there, it’s something we want to erase, and we don’t want to remember. We don’t want to see anymore. We need to see something better. Something that help us, help people to forget everything,” He said.
The cleared land will be the site of the future Pulse memorial. Rodriguez was part of the committee to help design it.
He said not all family members and survivors are happy with some of the memorial decisions, including himself.
For some, it’s because of the input process or plans for the design. For others, it’s because of a void a memorial could never fill. What Rodriguez calls a lack of justice.
“You want to feel a big relief, and many, many of the families, they don’t feel like that,” Rodriguez said. “They feel betrayed. They feel… angry. And for us, for the survivors, we feel like trash because we never going to forget everything we have in our minds, and mostly because the justice is not is not happening.”
Demolition of the building is set to start at 9 a.m. and finish by noon. Debris removal will take several days. Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer said construction could begin on the new memorial as early as September.