Seeking permanent home for ‘Tribute’
Philip K. Howard, chair of the committee behind the March 2002 debut of the 9/11 “Tribute in Lights,” recalls his sense of wonder as the twin beams first climbed into the heavens.
“It was just astonishing,” said Howard of the nowannual memorial’s debut, when the lights rose above Ground Zero as the city remained an open wound six months after the World Trade Center toppled. “Much more beautiful than we hoped for. It’s just, you know, quiet. It’s powerful, because it’s so tall and it conveys a sense of infinity.”
With the 20th anniversary of 9/11 coming next year, Howard wants to see a permanent home established for the annual memorial. The concept proposed by architect Richard Nash Gould involves a site at Ground Zero where the lights would remain housed in a subterranean home and raised above ground around each Sept. 11.
“We need to make the lights permanent,” he said. “The 9/11 Museum is beautiful. But it’s not the same as the lights.”
The first appearance of the memorial came on March 11, 2002, after much planning and negotiation. Gould and Howard — then chairman of the Municipal Arts Society — were joined by David Rockefeller in advocating for the unique remembrance.
“This would be so simple, beautiful and fill the void that seems so unnatural,” Howard wrote in a letter to Mayor Giuliani just eight days after the attack. The effort took off when Mayor Bloomberg arrived at City Hall, with 88 powerful searchlights arranged on March 11, 2002, to create the twin columns of light stretching as high as the eye can see.
Nearly two decades later, the message remains the same: “Every life is precious and and different, and we honor all those lives,” said Howard. “The people in the towers, and the firefighters and the police, all who ended up dying.”
He wasted no time springing into action after word of a planned cancellation of this year’s event spread last month, with the ongoing pandemic cited for the shutdown.
“I was disappointed,” said Howard. “I immediately put in a call to (Port Authority Chairman) Pat Foye to do whatever he could to reverse the decision — which was reversed very quickly.”
Howard believes the issues preceding this year’s “Tribute in Light” memorial only bolster the concept of a permanent installation.
“We can raise money and build it and endow it, so it’s not a burden on the taxpayers,” he said. “It could be turned on whenever appropriate. It’s appropriate to create a memorial like this.”