Saturday, December 21, 2013

WTC sphere is staying


From the NY Times:

Rededicated in Battery Park in Lower Manhattan on March 11, 2002, as New York City’s interim memorial, the “Sphere” has been sitting for months behind a construction fence while the park is renovated. No one in a position to know what might happen to the 25-foot-tall bronze globe, which still bears the scars of Sept. 11, 2001, would disclose anything publicly about where it might end up. Or when.

So when a work crew arrived on Wednesday and began dismantling the sculpture, placing one hemisphere on the back of a flatbed truck, and a crew member said that he could not divulge where the “Sphere” was headed, it seemed as if the cloak of secrecy was about to swallow the sculpture whole.

To make matters even more puzzling, officials of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which owns the sculpture, and those of the National September 11 Memorial, which is frequently mentioned as a possible final setting for the “Sphere,” said they knew nothing about the move.

The parks department did know about it, however. On Wednesday evening, Arthur Pincus, an assistant commissioner of the agency, said the “Sphere” was simply being moved about 550 feet within the park, to a spot much closer to Castle Clinton, to accommodate the renovations.


Originally they were going to remove the statue.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

The sphere is part of our history and should be preserved and not left to the elements, in my opinion.

If it is moved, it should be housed in a museum. If it is not moved, perhaps an appropriate structure (one that protects yet maintains accessibility) could be built around it. Many here will likely disagree with my thinking but what the heck.

Leaving this part of history exposed will ensure that some day, perhaps fifty years from now, it will oxidize and degrade to the point where it will no longer be regarded as an important reminder of a national tragedy but as an eyesore that many will want to be removed. This is a mistake. Artifacts like this should be preserved so that we don't forget. That is what they are for.

Joe said...

It looks like a giant goat turd that does nothing ! House it is some art museum it's not appropriate (never was).
Commission an artist to put up a small stainless steel and blue glass replica with changing color LED illumination of the old WTC in it's place as a tribute.
All the outer skin parts would be replicated and stamped out the same like the original. --(not hard to do)
That's something New Yorkers would like to see NOT some ugly "art" from Germany