Empty Sky (9-11 memorial)
Encyclopedia
Empty Sky is the official New Jersey
New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. , its population was 8,791,894. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania and on the southwest by Delaware...

 September 11 memorial to the state's victims of the September 11 attacks on the United States. It is located in Liberty State Park
Liberty State Park
Liberty State Park is located on Upper New York Bay in Jersey City, New Jersey, opposite the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. The park opened in 1976 to coincide with bicentennial celebrations and is operated and maintained by the New Jersey Division of Parks and Forestry.-Geography and...

 in Jersey City
Jersey City, New Jersey
Jersey City is the seat of Hudson County, New Jersey, United States.Part of the New York metropolitan area, Jersey City lies between the Hudson River and Upper New York Bay across from Lower Manhattan and the Hackensack River and Newark Bay...

 at the mouth of Hudson River across from the World Trade Center site
World Trade Center site
The World Trade Center site , also known as "Ground Zero" after the September 11 attacks, sits on in Lower Manhattan in New York City...

. Designed by Jessica Jamroz and Frederic Schwartz
Frederic Schwartz
Frederic Schwartz is an American architect, author, and city planner whose work includes "Empty Sky," the New Jersey 9-11 Memorial, scheduled to be dedicated in Liberty State Park on September 11, 2011, the tenth anniversary of the September 11 attacks.A recipient of the prestigious Rome Prize in...

, it was dedicated on Saturday, September 10, 2011, a day before the tenth anniversary of the attacks.

Design

The design was chosen by unanimous vote of the Families and Survivors Memorial Committee, out of 320 qualified entries in the international design competition. The memorial is dedicated to New Jersey's "746 innocent loved ones who were violently and senselessly murdered that day at the World Trade Center as well as in 1993, the Pentagon and in Shanksville, PA. The New Jersey 9/11 Memorial Foundation has stated that the goal of this memorial is to "reflect the legacies of those whose lives were lost, that their unfulfilled dreams and hopes may result in a better future for society. Their unique qualities and characteristics enriched our lives immeasurably and through this memorial, their stories live on.

The memorial includes twin walls, transecting a "gently sloped mound anchored by a granite path that is directed toward Ground Zero
Ground zero
The term ground zero describes the point on the Earth's surface closest to a detonation...

. Two 30-foot-high rectangular towers stretch 208 feet, 10 inches long — the exact width of the World Trade Center
World Trade Center
The original World Trade Center was a complex with seven buildings featuring landmark twin towers in Lower Manhattan, New York City, United States. The complex opened on April 4, 1973, and was destroyed in 2001 during the September 11 attacks. The site is currently being rebuilt with five new...

 towers, the proportion of the walls a symbolic representation of the buildings as if they were lying on their sides. The name of each of the 746 victims is etched in stainless steel in 4-inch-high letters. A granite passsage is oriented to face the site of the twin towers. The name of the memorial is taken from the Bruce Springsteen
Bruce Springsteen
Bruce Frederick Joseph Springsteen , nicknamed "The Boss," is an American singer-songwriter who records and tours with the E Street Band...

 song Empty Sky
The Rising (album)
The Rising is the 12th studio album by American recording artist Bruce Springsteen, released in 2002 on Columbia Records. In addition to being Springsteen's first studio album in seven years, it was also his first with the E Street Band in 18 years...

, which is about the "empty sky" where the towers once stood.
Frederic Schwartz, who co-authored the design with Jessica Jamroz, stated that he "listened to the needs and aspirations of the victims' relatives, friends and co-workers," and did not arrive "with a preconceived aesthetic approach." Schwartz who, along with Jamroz, also created "The Rising
The Rising (9-11 memorial)
The Rising is a memorial located in the Kensico Dam Plaza of Valhalla, Westchester County, New York, created by architect Frederic Schwartz. It stands against the backdrop of Kensico Dam, commemorating the September 11 attacks on America and remembering in a special way the men and women from...

," the Westchester County, New York
Westchester County, New York
Westchester County is a county located in the U.S. state of New York. Westchester covers an area of and has a population of 949,113 according to the 2010 Census, residing in 45 municipalities...

 September 11 memorial, states that "You start over each time....You do serious research, delve into the site, into the problem."

Some observers are noting that the memorial is "reminiscent of Maya Lin's Vietnam War memorial in Washington," with its walls filled with names, listed within easy reach and engraved deeply enough to make hand rubbings possible, but one of the many differences between that design and this one will be the way the memorial visually connects New Jersey with the skyline of New York - with the memorial walls symbolic of the felled twin towers across the Hudson River.

Controversy

Plans for the memorial were met with some controversy, and a non-profit advocacy group for Liberty State Park called "Friends of Liberty State Park" (FOLSP) filed a lawsuit to halt the project. The group stated that the memorial would block "panoramic Manhattan views," and that it should not be built or be relocated to an area near the 750-tree "Grove of Remembrance," an existing memorial to 9/11 victims. In addition to the concern that the views of Manhattan would be blocked, Sam Pesin, President of FOLSP, stated that the "main message" the group wanted to make clear is that "the governor, in this severe economic crisis, is wasting...taxpayers' money."
Pesin's father, Sam, was one of the park's original founders, in 1976.

Some of those in favor of the memorial called the action of the FOLSP a "frivolous lawsuit," and in November 2009 the Appellate Division of NJ Superior Court ruled in favor of the state's plans for the memorial. A spokesperson for Governor Jon Corzine
Jon Corzine
Jon Stevens Corzine is the former CEO of Goldman Sachs and of MF Global, and a one time American politician, who served as the 54th Governor of New Jersey from 2006 to 2010. A Democrat, Corzine served five years of a six-year U.S. Senate term representing New Jersey before being elected Governor...

 said the memorial that will be erected is the "result of an open public process," and Andrew Pratt, a spokesperson for the New Jersey Department of Treasury, said in 2010, shortly before the 9th anniversary of the attack, that the State is moving forward "aggressively" to ensure that the memorial is completed by the 10th anniversary in September 2011.

Construction

Funding for the memorial was provided by the state, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey
Port Authority of New York and New Jersey
The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey is a bi-state port district, established in 1921 through an interstate compact, that runs most of the regional transportation infrastructure, including the bridges, tunnels, airports, and seaports, within the Port of New York and New Jersey...

, and the New Jersey Building Association

Construction bids twelve million dollars higher than the projected cost of the memorial (due to the international spike in the price of stainless steel) resulted in a construction delay in 2007.

Construction began in May 2009, with a push to complete the memorial by August 15, 2011, in time for its scheduled September 11, 2011 dedication. Although the inside of the walls remained stainless steel, changes to the original design include a plan to use "architecturally finished concrete" for the outside surfaces, so that it will look more attractive than the "flat, drab coating of most concrete finishes."

Dedication

Dedication ceremonies took place September 10, 2011 and were attended by a number of notable political figures, including Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey, five former governors
Governor of New Jersey
The Office of the Governor of New Jersey is the executive branch for the U.S. state of New Jersey. The office of Governor is an elected position, for which elected officials serve four year terms. While individual politicians may serve as many terms as they can be elected to, Governors cannot be...

 of the state, presidential advisor John O. Brennan
John O. Brennan
John O. Brennan is chief counterterrorism advisor to U.S. President Barack Obama; officially his title is Deputy National Security Advisor for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, and Assistant to the President...

, Senators Frank Lautenberg
Frank Lautenberg
Frank Raleigh Lautenberg is the senior United States Senator from New Jersey and a member of the Democratic Party. Previously, he was the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Automatic Data Processing, Inc.-Early life, career, and family:...

 and Robert Menendez
Robert Menendez
Robert "Bob" Menendez is the junior United States Senator from New Jersey and a member of the Democratic Party. In January 2006, he was appointed to fill the U.S. Senate seat vacated by Jon Corzine, who resigned upon being elected Governor of New Jersey. Menendez was elected to his own full...

 and family members of those whose names are enscribed on the monument.

See also

  • The Rising (9-11 memorial)
    The Rising (9-11 memorial)
    The Rising is a memorial located in the Kensico Dam Plaza of Valhalla, Westchester County, New York, created by architect Frederic Schwartz. It stands against the backdrop of Kensico Dam, commemorating the September 11 attacks on America and remembering in a special way the men and women from...

  • To the Struggle Against World Terrorism
  • Liberation (Holocaust memorial)
    Liberation (Holocaust memorial)
    Liberation is a bronze Holocaust memorial created by the sculptor Nathan Rapoport, located in Liberty State Park in Jersey City, New Jersey. Officially dedicated on May 30, 1985, the monument portrays an American soldier, carrying the body of a Holocaust survivor out of a Nazi concentration...

  • Memorials and services for the September 11 attacks

External links

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