December 13, 2002
Committee unveils plan for 9/11
memorial
Marlboro artist’s design at the heart of county’s commemoration
By Gloria Stravelli
Staff Writer
http://atlanticville.gmnews.com/news/2002/1213/Front_page/015.html
A beam of steel, twisted by the devastation wrought on the World Trade Center by terrorist attacks, was the inspiration for an artist's vision for the county's Sept. 11 memorial.
"I didn't have a design until I saw that beam. When I saw that beam, it bowled me over," said sculptor Franco Minervini, whose design of an eagle lifting a beam from the WTC rubble and soaring skyward, has been chosen by the Monmouth County Sept. 11 Memorial Committee.
Still in its initial phase, the county memorial is slated to be completed by Sept. 11, 2004, according to Monmouth County Park System Director James Truncer.
The 5-foot I-beam was donated by the Monmouth County Prosecutor's Office, which accepted an offer from the New York Police Department to make available material salvaged from the WTC site for use in memorials.
"The Prosecutor's Office thought we might be interested," said Truncer. "It was made available to the committee to consider whether they wanted to incorporate it or not."
"I thought, No matter who gets the design, the beam has to be included," recalled Minervini, who is a nonvoting member of the memorial committee. "Even though other artists had seen it and were aware of it, I was the only one to use it in the design."
"Do you remember the patriotism that was shown throughout the whole country the day after?" he asked. "The beam itself is a very powerful tool.
"I wanted to get the symbol of freedom, of America, to take the physical beam and the souls of all those who perished and bring them up to heaven. I wanted to bring the souls and the physical aspect of the beam to a better world."
The committee of citizens, some who lost loved ones in the Sept. 11 attacks, was charged with developing the design of the county memorial commemorating the events of 9/11 and the 146 county residents whose lives were lost in the terrorist attacks.
The memorial will be located at the Mount Mitchell Scenic Overlook in Atlantic Highlands, which affords a sweeping panorama of the Manhattan skyline, including the site where the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center once stood.
Still to be decided is how the county will finance the memorial and who will execute the design.
Truncer said the design of the memorial is based on Minervini's design incorporating the eagle and the beam, and evolved through a collaborative process that incorporated suggestions from the committee and other sources.
Deal architect and memorial committee member Frank Tomaino said the committee met about a dozen times since forming in July and received some 20 proposals for the design of the memorial to be located at the Mount Mitchell Scenic Overlook.
Like all park projects, the memorial will have to go through the CAFRA review process, and get local approval, he added.
"Some (memorial designs) were as simple as a letter and others were very elaborate. So we had some very simple approaches and some very elaborate presentations of drawings, scale models," he explained.
One of the first tasks the committee tackled was to plan necessary improvements to the park as well as to locate the memorial at the overlook, which has been a park system property since 1973.
"This was discussed at length," Tomaino said. "We addressed siting of the memorial on that property, the whole issue of extra parking and other site features there. These were all issues we talked about first to try to determine how large an area we would need for the site."
The board adopted a site plan by Red Bank architect George Rudolph, of George Cooper Rudolph III, who is a member of the memorial committee.
"He came up with an interesting proposal that the board adopted as the proper site plan," Tomaino said.
"Currently, the parking area to get to the park is constructed on an old road that went through the park. It's a straight shot that looks east. His idea is to provide a more curved parking area that would go down to the right as you enter and follow the topography of the site," he explained. "By making it a large semicircle, it increases the parking count and allows people to drive all the way to the end of the arc and come close to the edge so handicapped individuals could stay in their cars and see the views."
The plan locates the walkway to the memorial site between two existing viewing platforms, and the monument will be placed in an area between those two shelters in a grassy area away from the edge, so it doesn't impact the slope, he added.
Next, the group met to review all proposals submitted and discussed them during several meetings.
"There were wonderful ideas, and it was very difficult to choose one," Tomaino noted. "So, what we ended up doing is taking some key portions of a lot of the proposals and putting them together into a vision for a monument that combined lots of elements from various ideas.
"The new parking area is at a lower elevation than the location of the monument. It's six feet lower, and you walk up the hill to the monument. So we thought some sort of small entrance structure you walk through and under should be built."
The path to the monument will have its own role. According to Tomaino, a chronology of 9/11 would be carved into paving stones on the walkway, and adjacent plaques would explain the corresponding event.
"The committee thought it was very important to set forth these details. As you walk and head toward the monument, you read the plaques and experience the time frame," he said. "As you come up to the top of the hill, you see a large, circular paved area, and a map of Monmouth County would be carved into the stone. In the center will be a round table 12 feet in diameter and 40 inches high. The table will have a 2-foot-high chamfered edge .
"Our intent is that this table will be covered with a shiny dark stone like polished black granite, and the names of the individuals lost from Monmouth County would be carved into that piece."
The victims' names will be grouped under the names of the towns where they lived, and their ages will also be carved into the stone, Tomaino said, "so people would see the impact of the young people involved who lost their lives."
In the center of the tableau, the design calls for a carving in light-colored stone of an eagle grasping and lifting off the rubble of the WTC site an actual piece of steel recovered from the site.
The entire monument, as envisioned by the committee, would be about 14-15 feet high at its highest point and 12 feet in diameter.
In the floor of the walkway around the table, Tomaino said, poems and sayings that reflect thoughts about the events of that day would be carved. The inscriptions will be chosen by the committee in the next phase of the design process.
"We thought that would be just a simple statement, and you'd look out across the bay toward the place where the World Trade Center used to be," he said.
The site will provide seating for quiet meditation.
Tomaino said the committee is considering relocating an existing playground so that it is visible from the path to remind visitors "that life goes on."
Minervini said he asked to be on the committee to make sure the process included artistic input. According to Minervini, his familiarity with Mount Mitchell — his wife was an Atlantic Highlands resident — proved to be an advantage.
"I used to go there, so it's a familiar place to me," he said. "It is the coldest, hottest, windiest, it is one of the most extreme places in the county because it's so high."
The wind factor caused the Marlboro resident to change his original design, which included two water fountains, as did the collaborative process engaged in by the committee.
"My original design has changed," he acknowledged. "This is really a design of the committee. I made my proposal and I'm still making changes. Luckily, they're not making so many changes that they are changing the design.
"What I want it to say to the people in Monmouth County is, ‘This is how much we cared.' At the end, all the members of the committee and all the residents of Monmouth County will be proud of it."
According to Minervini, the eagle "ascending to a better world" would be carved from Indiana limestone and would be larger than life size, with a nine-foot wingspan. The figure will be mounted above a granite-faced base.
Should he be given the commission, the monument would take seven to nine months to carve, he said.
A native of Molfetta in Italy's Bari region, known for the skill of its stone cutters, Minervini was schooled by his grandfather, who began training him at age 8.
He immigrated to Hoboken with his family at the age of 13 and took up stone cutting again in the early 1980s, studying with renowned sculptor Bruno Lucchese at The New School in Manhattan. He was hired to work on the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., from 1985-87, then was called on for restoration work on the White House. He moved to Marlboro in 1972, establishing a studio in Freehold Township.
Locally, Minervini was commissioned by the Italian American Memorial Association to create a monument to Christopher Columbus for the front of the Ocean Township Library.
According to Truncer, the county will dedicate $450,000 from Open Space funds for the necessary site work. The committee will continue to refine details of the monument and arrive at a cost estimate, and will then seek proposals to execute the design, he said.
Park system staff will complete a field study, laying out the suggested site design and making any adjustments, he explained. Then, bids will be put out for an engineer to lay out the site plan and prepare specifications and plans for the work that needs to be done.
The second phase would be the creation and installation of the monument.
Minervini said the enormity of the catastrophe is still beyond his grasp.
"When it comes to Sept. 11 and trying to understand what happened, I can't make heads or tails of it," admitted Minervini.
"I cut stones, I bend steel, and most people know me as a tough Italian man," said Minervini, momentarily overcome with emotion. "When it comes to this, well, it's just what I wanted to do, what I wanted to say."