Tweet
Changing History- The Flag Raising on 9-11
I saw this article in newsday from dec 22nd.
'Flag-Raising' Statue Unveiled / Model inspired by Sept. 11 photo
PUBLICATION: Newsday
BY: Joshua Robin. STAFF WRITER
DATE: 12-22-2001
A clay sculpture depicting three firefighters raising the flag at Ground Zero on Sept. 11 was unveiled Friday in front of the department's Brooklyn headquarters.
"Flag-Raising at Ground Zero," based on a photograph taken the day of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, will be bronzed at an upstate foundry before official dedication ceremonies in April in front of 9 MetroTech Center.
The $180,000 statue is the first memorial to the 343 firefighters and emergency medical personnel killed Sept. 11. Bruce Ratner, president and chief executive of Forest City Ratner Companies, which developed MetroTech, is underwriting the memorial.
Though it is inspired by the picture taken by Thomas Franklin, a photographer for The Record in Bergen, N.J., artists from the Brooklyn studio who crafted the 18-foot-high sculpture made subtle changes.
For one, the firefighters in the photo, who were all white, were replaced in the sculpture with three unidentified Fire Department staffers of three different races, artists said Friday. The clay firefighters' arms also appear more sinewy and their postures more upright.
The modifications came at the behest of Fire Department officials, said artists with Studio EIS, located on York Street in the Dumbo section.
Neither Franklin nor the three firefighters in the photo came to Friday's ceremony, to which they had been invited.
Mayor Rudolph Giuliani said the Sept. 11 flag-raising proved the terrorists did not achieve their ultimate goal of breaking the nation's spirit.
Calling the photograph "one of the most inspirational that I have ever seen," Giuliani said it showed that "the spirit of America ... was soaring above the evil deeds that were done to us."
Fire Commissioner Thomas Von Essen cried during the ceremony. He has announced he will retire after Giuliani's term ends with the Jan. 1 swearing-in of Mayor-elect Michael Bloomberg.
The eyes of Capt. James Graham of Rockville Centre, who works at Ladder Co. 102 in Bedford-Stuyvesant, also welled with tears during the service, which he attended after a morning off-duty spent combing the rubble of Ground Zero.
"It wasn't a fire," Graham said of Sept. 11. "It was an act of war."
Plans for a memorial in lower Manhattan remain under discussion.
After the ceremony, Giuliani said the city should build a temporary memorial in lower Manhattan before a permanent structure is built.
Of Ground Zero, Giuliani said: "We should not ... give the impression that the most important thing to us there is economic development, because it's not. The most important thing to us should be appropriately remembering, memorializing the lives of people that were lost there."
As of Friday, an Associated Press list of victims of the attacks on New York and Washington numbered 3,187 people. Of those, 2,954 were killed or lost in the Trade Center attacks, including the passengers and crew of the two hijacked jets that slammed into the Twin Towers.
Staff writer Dan Janison and The Associated Press contributed to this story.
© Copyright 2001, Newsday Inc.
So they decided to change history to make things politically correct? The most memorable image from Sept 11th will be cheapened in a sculpture that will be factually wrong. I wonder how our three brothers who raised the flag feel about this? They weren't at this ceremony, if that says anything. Neither was the photographer.
Is it time they go back and modify all other sculptures that have historical meaning, like Iwo Jima, etc?
FF Williams, FF Johnson, and FF Eisengrien raised the flag as brothers, as Americans. Not as three white guys.
Does anyone else feel as I do? I just can't believe this stuff.
If any of you feel as annoyed as I do, please write either of the two people listed here. The company paying the bill, or, according to the article, the people who decided on changing history.
Bruce Ratner
President and CEO
Forest City Enterprises, Inc.
Terminal Tower
50 Public Square Suite 1100
Cleveland, Ohio 44113
Tel: (216)621-6060
Fax: (226)263-6208
WWW.FCEINC.COM
Fire Commissionar's Office
FDNY Headquaters
9 Metro Tech Center
Brooklyn, NY 11201-5431
'Flag-Raising' Statue Unveiled / Model inspired by Sept. 11 photo
PUBLICATION: Newsday
BY: Joshua Robin. STAFF WRITER
DATE: 12-22-2001
A clay sculpture depicting three firefighters raising the flag at Ground Zero on Sept. 11 was unveiled Friday in front of the department's Brooklyn headquarters.
"Flag-Raising at Ground Zero," based on a photograph taken the day of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, will be bronzed at an upstate foundry before official dedication ceremonies in April in front of 9 MetroTech Center.
The $180,000 statue is the first memorial to the 343 firefighters and emergency medical personnel killed Sept. 11. Bruce Ratner, president and chief executive of Forest City Ratner Companies, which developed MetroTech, is underwriting the memorial.
Though it is inspired by the picture taken by Thomas Franklin, a photographer for The Record in Bergen, N.J., artists from the Brooklyn studio who crafted the 18-foot-high sculpture made subtle changes.
For one, the firefighters in the photo, who were all white, were replaced in the sculpture with three unidentified Fire Department staffers of three different races, artists said Friday. The clay firefighters' arms also appear more sinewy and their postures more upright.
The modifications came at the behest of Fire Department officials, said artists with Studio EIS, located on York Street in the Dumbo section.
Neither Franklin nor the three firefighters in the photo came to Friday's ceremony, to which they had been invited.
Mayor Rudolph Giuliani said the Sept. 11 flag-raising proved the terrorists did not achieve their ultimate goal of breaking the nation's spirit.
Calling the photograph "one of the most inspirational that I have ever seen," Giuliani said it showed that "the spirit of America ... was soaring above the evil deeds that were done to us."
Fire Commissioner Thomas Von Essen cried during the ceremony. He has announced he will retire after Giuliani's term ends with the Jan. 1 swearing-in of Mayor-elect Michael Bloomberg.
The eyes of Capt. James Graham of Rockville Centre, who works at Ladder Co. 102 in Bedford-Stuyvesant, also welled with tears during the service, which he attended after a morning off-duty spent combing the rubble of Ground Zero.
"It wasn't a fire," Graham said of Sept. 11. "It was an act of war."
Plans for a memorial in lower Manhattan remain under discussion.
After the ceremony, Giuliani said the city should build a temporary memorial in lower Manhattan before a permanent structure is built.
Of Ground Zero, Giuliani said: "We should not ... give the impression that the most important thing to us there is economic development, because it's not. The most important thing to us should be appropriately remembering, memorializing the lives of people that were lost there."
As of Friday, an Associated Press list of victims of the attacks on New York and Washington numbered 3,187 people. Of those, 2,954 were killed or lost in the Trade Center attacks, including the passengers and crew of the two hijacked jets that slammed into the Twin Towers.
Staff writer Dan Janison and The Associated Press contributed to this story.
© Copyright 2001, Newsday Inc.
So they decided to change history to make things politically correct? The most memorable image from Sept 11th will be cheapened in a sculpture that will be factually wrong. I wonder how our three brothers who raised the flag feel about this? They weren't at this ceremony, if that says anything. Neither was the photographer.
Is it time they go back and modify all other sculptures that have historical meaning, like Iwo Jima, etc?
FF Williams, FF Johnson, and FF Eisengrien raised the flag as brothers, as Americans. Not as three white guys.
Does anyone else feel as I do? I just can't believe this stuff.
If any of you feel as annoyed as I do, please write either of the two people listed here. The company paying the bill, or, according to the article, the people who decided on changing history.
Bruce Ratner
President and CEO
Forest City Enterprises, Inc.
Terminal Tower
50 Public Square Suite 1100
Cleveland, Ohio 44113
Tel: (216)621-6060
Fax: (226)263-6208
WWW.FCEINC.COM
Fire Commissionar's Office
FDNY Headquaters
9 Metro Tech Center
Brooklyn, NY 11201-5431
)and may not reflect those of any organization with which I am associated (but then again, they just may not be thinking clearly).
Comment