This Sunday will mark the 10th anniversary for the tragic 9-1-1 attacks on NYC’s World Trade Center and the US Pentagon . The National 9/11 Memorial will be dedicated on September 11, 2011 in a special ceremony for victims’ families. The Memorial’s twin reflecting pools are each nearly an acre in size and feature the largest manmade waterfalls in the North America. The pools sit within the footprints where the Twin Towers once stood. Architect Michael Arad and landscape architect Peter Walker created the Memorial design selected from a global design competition that included more than 5,200 entries from 63 nations.
The names of every person who died in the 2001 and 1993 attacks are inscribed into bronze panels edging the Memorial pools, a powerful reminder of the largest loss of life resulting from a foreign attack on American soil and the greatest single loss of rescue personnel in American history.
The 2,982 names of the victims are etched on bronze, stencil-cut parapets lining the outer walls of the reflecting pools. The design allows daytime visitors to view the waterfalls through the inscriptions and for light to shine through at night.
The design, chosen from 5,201 entries from 63 countries, organizes the names according to direct relationships between spouses, relatives, colleagues, and friends as well as by affiliation or agency. Names of victims from World Trade Center North, Flight 11, and February 26, 1993 line the north pool, while the south pool houses the names of victims from World Trade Center South, first responders, flights 175, 177, and 93, and the Pentagon. Visitors interested in locating a particular name can find the name’s “address” on the official website, an N or S followed by a number 1-76 to indicate a specific pool and panel, by using a smartphone application, or on a kiosk at the memorial site.
We will never forget those who died on September 11, 2001 and we are thankful for those soldiers who fight every day so we can live in a Country that protects our freedom!
God Bless the USA!
