Saturday, November 12, 2011

What Happened to "The Wall?"

"The Wall" is missing from the map, nor does landmarks and SURLs to it work. It's website at http://www.thewallsl.com/ is also gone, replaced by something in Japanese kanji.

A faithful reproduction of the Vietnam Veterans' Memorial, "The Wall" in Second Life was constructed by the Meme Science group (memescience.com doesn't work either) with Corwin Chevalier and Evian Argus designing the build, with Bleys Chevalier leading the building effort. It was opened to all residents on Veterans day 2007.

A moving tribute, The Wall listed all 58,000 names of US Veterans whom gave their lives in the Vietnam War, including a few that didn't quite make the list to the real-life one in time for it's construction. Each of the names could be looked up and found, allowing visitors to find them. Also at the wall was a virtual Three Servicemen Statue, by artist Melini Fairymeadow.


"The Wall" was one of the first places I wrote about in Second Life, and to me one of the best examples as to what one could create on the Grid. I last visited it in May, and there was no sign then there was a problem. It is unclear when the decision to take the place down was made, and SL Newser heard of no call for help to raise donations for upkeep.

It's vanishing would truly be a loss for the Grid.

Bixyl Shuftan

1 comment:

  1. Bixyl, if you look in search there is a classified ad for the build under "Special Attractions" placed on Nov 5, 2011 for $25000. I'm not sure what happened but it seemed like a really bad time for it to go down.

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