Hoboken 9/11 Memorial

**ZippyTheChimp** · February 13th, 2004, 10:19 PM

Downtown Express http://www.downtownexpress.com/

An idea for Hoboken’s 9/11 victims

Two Downtown designers who have made their mark in Lower Manhattan are among the four finalists to design a memorial to the 57 Hoboken residents who died in the Sept. 11 attack.

The two designers, architect Frederic Schwartz and artist Brian Tolle, say their design, “Portraits of Hoboken,” pictured below, “frames two communities forever linked by the river that unites them: Hoboken and the skyline of Lower Manhattan.”

Schwartz, who lives and works near Canal St., designed the restoration of the Whitehall Ferry Terminal which will open later this year and was part of the team that designed Towers of Culture, the runner-up master plan for the redevelopment of the World Trade Center site. Tolle, a Village resident, designed the Irish Hunger Memorial, which overlooks the Hudson River in Battery Park City.

Their Hoboken design, a 45 by 100-foot rectangular-shaped memorial, would frame the view of the area where the Twin Towers once stood and where the site’s new buildings are expected to begin rising later this year. Visitors could enter the frame in Hoboken’s Pier A Park and walk up ramps covering the exact height of one of the W.T.C. towers. The names and ages of the 57 people who died would be engraved in the handrails.

Schwartz said the design would be visible in Lower Manhattan along the river and from commuter ferries which stop right near the park. It would stay open in the winter, but would have to close on particularly windy days, he said.

Pier A Park is the site where hundreds of people gathered on 9/11and will be the site of the memorial, expected to cost $500,000 and be funded through donations. Michael Estevez, a spokesperson for the Hoboken September 11th Memorial Fund (www.hoboken911.com), said some of the teams are still revising their designs and he would not discuss any of the other plans until they are unveiled the first week in March. He said individual designers are not forbidden to make their plans public, as Schwartz did. The seven-member memorial jury, which includes two people who have played active roles in Lower Manhattan planning, Ray Gastil, executive director of the Van Alen Institute and Ann Buttenwieser, an urban planner and veteran of city government, will pick a final design by the end of March.

The other finalists are the FLOW Group, comprised of artist Janet Echelman, who has produced wind-activated sculptures, aeronautical engineer Peter Heppel, who worked on the Millennium Tower in Glasgow and has worked with NASA, and lighting designer Domingo Gonzalez, who worked on the N.Y.C. Police Memorial in Battery Park City and the George Washington Bridge; architect Ralph Lerner, who designed the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts in New Delhi, and landscape architect Kate Orff, an assistant professor at Columbia University; and artist Krzystztof Wodiczko, known for his large-scale projections on public buildings and Julian Bonder.

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http://www.hoboken911.com

**BigMac** · March 4th, 2004, 05:28 PM

Hoboken September 11th Memorial Fund Unveils Four Concepts for City's 9/11 Memorial

Four World-Class Teams Selected from Among 10 Semi-Finalists

HOBOKEN, NEW JERSEY, March 4, 2004 - The Hoboken September 11th Memorial Fund today announced that four designs have been selected as finalists for the city's September 11th memorial; more than 50 Hoboken residents were lost on September 11, 2001, more than any other New Jersey municipality. The concepts were selected by a professional jury empanelled by the Memorial Fund, an organization comprised of city officials, community volunteers, and surviving family members that is charged with raising funds and overseeing the construction of a permanent memorial on Hoboken's waterfront in honor of the city residents lost on 9/11.

The final concepts were selected through a professional juried design competition organized by Buff Suzanne Kavelman, the Director of the Smithsonian's National Design Awards at Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum. Ms. Kavelman joined the Memorial Fund in 2003 to oversee the design competition phase of the memorial process. The concepts, which include design boards and scale models, will be publicly displayed during a public review and comment period. The final design for the Hoboken September 11th memorial will be selected by the members of the Memorial Fund committee and the jurors in April 2004.

"We are gratified that we reached this important milestone along this solemn journey," said Hoboken Mayor David Roberts. "On behalf of all the residents of Hoboken, I would like to extend my heartfelt congratulations to this talented group of artists and designers and thank everyone involved in this process for their hard work and dedication. September 11th was a painful day for Hoboken and our nation. This memorial is a very important element in the healing process and a lasting monument to the friends and loved ones we lost."

The final concepts were designed by:

The FLOW Group brings together five award-winning professionals from art, architecture, engineering and lighting design. Artist Janet Echelman produces monumental wind-activated sculpture suspended from highways and architecture, with major commissions in Portugal, Spain, Holland, and the United States. Architect Jeanne Gang, principal of Studio Gang Architects, designed the Starlight Theatre with a kinetic roof. Aeronautical engineer Peter Heppel has engineered America's Cup sails, tensile fabric airlocks for NASA, and the Millennium Tower in Glasgow, which rotates in the wind. Architectural lighting designer Domingo Gonzalez illuminated the NYC Police Memorial, JFK Airport's Terminal One, and the George Washington Bridge. Hoboken resident Aine Brazil, managing principal of Thornton Tomasetti Engineers, joins the team as the engineer of record and has extensive experience in the design and construction of high-rise offices, hotels, hospitals, air-rights projects with long span transfer systems and other public projects.

Architect Ralph Lerner FAIA, and landscape architect Kate Orff have more than thirty years combined experience in the fields of architecture and urban design. Currently Lerner is a Professor of Architecture at Princeton's School of Architecture, where he previously served as Dean for many years. His firm has received numerous design awards including those from Progressive Architecture , the New Jersey AIA, and Architectural Design. Among his notable projects are the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts in New Delhi, India; the Winston-Salem Downtown Plan; and the Public Realm Improvement Strategy for Lower Manhattan. Kate Orff's landscape design focuses on urban ecology and public space design. Currently she serves as an Assistant Professor at the Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture Planning and Preservation, where she teaches seminars and studios at the intersection of landscape, infrastructure and architecture.

Artist Brian Tolle and architect Frederic Schwartz are both actively engaged in the design of public work. While working on his Irish Hunger Memorial, a few blocks from the World Trade Center, Tolle watched as the first plane struck the north tower. In the months following the terrorist attack, the memorial became the first active construction site in Lower Manhattan. His other works include WitchCatcher in City Hall Park and Waylay for the 2002 Whitney Biennial in Central Park. Tolle recently won the Mall B competition sponsored by Cleveland Public Art, which will be dedicated in the summer of 2004. After witnessing the tragedies of September 11 th firsthand, Schwartz co-founded the THINK team, one of the finalists for the redevelopment of the World Trade Center. Nearby, his design for the new Staten Island Ferry Terminal is currently under construction. The Santa Fe Railyard Park and Plaza (with Ken Smith and Mary Miss) and the SW Regional Capitol of France in Toulouse (with VSBA) are other major commissions.

Polish-born artist Krzysztof Wodiczko is best known for his powerful, large-scale projections on public buildings and spaces, which he first developed in Toronto in 1980. Now he divides his time between New York and Boston, where he heads the Interrogative Design Group at MIT's Center for Advanced Visual Studies. His work has been extensively exhibited worldwide, including New York, Washington, DC, Paris, London, Amsterdam, Barcelona, Vienna and Warsaw, and it is represented in many museums such as the Walker Art Center; the New Museum of Contemporary Art and Jewish Museum in New York; and the National Galleries of Canada and Poland. Architect Julian Bonder, principal of Julian Bonder + Associates, is an active contributor to American and international discourse on memory, public space, public art, cultural trauma and monument design, often working outside the traditional boundaries of architecture. He has taught architecture at Syracuse, Roger Williams and Buenos Aires Universities, and now serves as Hyde Chair and visiting professor at the University of Nebraska.

The announcement of the four finalists follows a series of important milestones achieved by the Memorial Fund committee. In addition to raising more than $30,000 through a grassroots mailing and community fundraisers, the Memorial Fund recently received a $500,000 state grant thanks to the efforts of State Senator Bernard F. Kenny, Jr. Additionally, a September 11th Memorial Tree Grove was dedicated on September 11, 2003, that was made possible by a grant from the USDA Forest Service.
Log on to the Hoboken September 11th Memorial Fund's web site at www.hoboken911.com for more information about the Hoboken September 11th Memorial Fund, full biographies of the artists and jury members, to make a donation, or to register for e-mail updates.

**Kris** · March 5th, 2004, 01:51 AM

March 5, 2004

4 Finalists for Memorial to Sept. 11 In Hoboken

By MARIA NEWMAN

HOBOKEN, N.J., March 4 - The horror of 9/11 played out here, too.

And so, while most of the attention has been given to the planning of the memorial at the site of the fallen World Trade Center, this city, which estimates it has lost more than 50 people in the attack, is one of countless communities in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut grappling with plans for their own memorials.

On Thursday, the Hoboken Sept. 11 Memorial Fund, which the mayor organized three months after the attack, announced that four designs had been selected as finalists in the competition for a memorial. A final design for a memorial that will be erected at Pier A Park along the waterfront will be chosen by May, Mayor David Roberts said.

Hoboken's losses were among the worst in the communities surrounding New York City. From its perch across the Hudson River from Manhattan, Hoboken not only lost many of its sons and daughters, but it also opened its arms to tens of thousands of people who spilled over from across the river by ferry that chaotic day, coming here to seek help or to connect with loved ones.

"Ten of every 750 people from Hoboken died in 9/11,'' Mayor Roberts said. "It was the largest loss of life in New Jersey. It changed us. It's important for the families of those who lost loved ones, and for others who witnessed it from here, that we have a lasting memorial.''

The designs were unveiled at a news conference at the offices of John Wiley & Sons Inc., in a boardroom that looks out on the memorial site and the Manhattan skyline.

The memorial fund committee, made up of city officials, community volunteers and surviving family members, impaneled a jury of designers, artists, scholars and other professionals to help select the designs. The committee is responsible for raising money and overseeing the construction of a permanent memorial in honor of the city residents lost in the attack.

To select finalists, the design jury held a competition that was organized by Buff Suzanne Kavelman, the director of the Smithsonian's National Design Awards at Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum. She joined the memorial fund last year.

Ms. Kavelman said the jury was aware that many other communities were constructing their own memorials, but tried not to be bound by what others were doing.

"It's important that each community follow its own personality,'' she said. "Here in Hoboken the committee was deliberately very diverse, made up of professionals and families of victims and experts.''

"We wanted to go for quality over quantity in the designs,'' Ms. Kavelman added.

The four designs chosen as finalists each feature one prominent structure that encourages visitors to look toward Manhattan, toward the empty place in the skyline that the twin towers once dominated.

"A memorial has to make you think about what happened, not represent what happened,'' said Julian Bonder, a designer who collaborated with Krzysztof Wodiczko on one of the four design finalists.

One design has a row of lights, like giant birthday candles, that appear to lead across the Hudson toward New York City. Another design features a rust-colored structure that leads from one end of the pier toward the water, where people can view Manhattan from inside a boxy structure.

The third design looks from afar like a giant abacus; it is a transparent, rectangular structure with ramps allowing visitors to walk up toward the top to get a better view of the site of the twin towers.

The fourth design is a wind-activated structure that looks like a primitive satellite dish, with a round piece of netting material suspended from several posts.

One committee member, Tom Rohner, whose brother, Scott, worked for Cantor Fitzgerald and died in the north tower. said he was pleased with the process to select a memorial so far.

"I want it to help bring some understanding of what happened that day, and who was lost, and not just be a great structure,'' Mr. Rohner, 28, said on Thursday. "It's not going to fix anything for me and my family. But it's certainly wonderful. It won't make me feel better about what happened, but it certainly will be a place that I will go to remember.''

Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

**ZippyTheChimp** · March 5th, 2004, 09:19 AM

"A memorial has to make you think about what happened, not represent what happened,'' said Julian Bonder, a designer who collaborated with Krzysztof Wodiczko on one of the four design finalists.

Some of us across the river should take note.

**Kris** · July 13th, 2004, 01:14 PM

Winner

**Ninjahedge** · July 13th, 2004, 02:58 PM

That's nice and all, but if you have been to Pier A, I don't think it will work very well.

I think the best thing is to get the proposed location for Pier B, and place the small, whatever you call it, in the "center" between them. Then you can build access between the piere and the memorial when the second one is constructed.

As for some of the other designs (like the giant Ant-Farm) UGH!!!!!!!!!