By: Amy Wesfeldt
Associated Press
NEW YORK (AP) - Eight competing designs for a memorial to the
nearly 3,000 victims of Sept. 11 - including reflecting pools, walls
of names and a tomb for the unidentified - were unveiled
Wednesday as the rebuilding of the World Trade Center entered
a delicate new phase.
A 13-member panel chose the eight finalists from a record 5,201
proposals for commemorating the 2001 terrorist attacks in
New York, Washington and Pennsylvania, as well as the
1993 trade center bombing. The panel will settle on a final
design by the end of the year.
The designs include gardens, maple trees, soaring light beams
and private areas for relatives of the dead. One envisions a blue
light projected upward from a resting place for the unidentified
remains of trade center victims.
"We really now are at the point that gives the families hope,"
said Monica Iken, whose husband, Michael, was killed at the
trade center. She said each design "brings you into a space
that says this is a sacred, spiritual, peaceful place of reflection
where we're going to honor and remember."
But deciding on a final memorial is certain to create friction
and hurt feelings.
The Lower Manhattan Development Corp., the agency
overseeing the competition, had issued guidelines that
say all proposals should recognize the towers' footprints
and preserve a wall that is the only remnant of the original
complex. It also said that all victims need to be recognized,
and that some should not be made to seem more important
than others.
However, some firefighters and their families have been pushing
to have the fallen rescue workers honored together and to have
an inscription describing their sacrifice. Rosaleen Tallon, whose
brother, firefighter Sean Tallon was killed, said Wednesday her
family would remove his name from the memorial if he could not
be listed with his colleagues.
But many firefighters, dozens of whom arrived to view the plans
on display, said they were encouraged to find at least three designs
proposed listing rescue workers' names together. Other entries
proposed alphabetical listings, while one suggested that victims
could be grouped together along with their relatives, friends
or colleagues.
The designers, whose names were not known to the jury who
selected them, found different ways to recognize the 2,982
victims of the 1993 and 2001 attacks.
One design, "Supsending Memory," represents each victim with
columns that begin as concrete and end as glass, listing important
events in the person's life. Another would include large photographs
of the victims on glass panels in the northern tower's footprint.
Many of the designs list victims' names on stone walls that surround
the site, some with a constant flow of water over the names.
One entry proposed creating a crystalline "cloud" with cathedral-like
vaults that allow soaring beams of light. Another proposes recreating
the floor plans of the 94th and 95th floors of the north tower, and
inscribes victims' names on a clear glass plate near the location where
the first plane hit the tower.
Juror Vartan Gregorian, president of the Carnegie Corp., said the
finalists, who range from less experienced artists to internationally
known architects, created designs that "represent the heights of
imagination while incorporating aesthetic grace and spiritual strength."
The designs will be kept on display near the trade center site until the
jury makes its choice.
Daniel Libeskind and David Childs, the architects for the new trade
center skyscraper, are working against a mid-December deadline set
by Gov. George Pataki to complete revisions to Libeskind's Freedom
Tower design. The tower design could be adjusted to accommodate
the winning memorial.
Libeskind said Wednesday that he could work with any of the eight
designs. "The jury has done an excellent job in choosing entries
that are sensitive and artistic and we all await the jury's decision,"
he said.
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