AP photo from the FDNY websiteYou know, it's not easy to talk about the 9/11 memorials because they're considered sacred just by the fact that they exist. If I don't like a piece or think it's badly done, and I say it, I open myself to cries of insensitivity and probably questionable politics. On the other hand, I'm not in the habit of genuflecting at the altar of political correctness, good intentions and excessive cash outlay. So I plunge...
The first thing that makes a monument most effective, as I mentioned in the last blog, is to put it where the event happened.
Everyone's been following the disgrace they call the 9/11 Memorial competition on the site of the Ground Zero in NYC. There's nothing up there now but a fence covered with photographs. Meanwhile, on a fire station across the street...
In June, a huge bas relief went up on the side of "Ten House" a first responder fire station that lost its fair share of rescuers. It's a bronze monster. The biggest relief in the US, they say- 56 ft long and six high. Along those 56 feet, first reponders are strung in a variety of activities. In the center are the flaming towers. The names of the lost are etched below the pix. It clearly states that this piece is for "those who fell and those who carry on". I like that touch.
It has a great pedigree according to Rambusch (a pedigreed firm in itself), the folks who made it. They were thinking Trajan's column in Rome. They were thinking the Firemen's Memorial in Riverside Park. It was sponsored by Holland and Knight, whose employee died in attempts to rescue people. So they were thinking tragic connection with the corporate sponsorship. It was created with major input from the firefighters themselves. It is totally accurate in the gear it portrays. So they were also thinking verisimilitude.
It is incredibly sensitive to everyone involved. It's heartfelt. Kids do rubbings of the piece to take home. Families take comfort in seeing the names on the building so close to the disaster. Turn around and look at the site of the disaster.
So it's effective. It's not great art. It could have been better done if its size and scope had been honed. If someone had clearly thought about what they were trying to say. It looks as if it were done by committee... Does money, sentiment and bronze make a good memorial? I think not. Not objectively. But to those families who needed something to give tribute to the rescuers who paid for the tragedy with their lives, it may be enough.
