The memorial wall
: I’ve been going to the World Trade Center site to do research for my memorial proposal and I’ve been touched by the actions of the many pilgrims who come there. The steel fence all around the site is kept clean of markings and objects. The fence behind the church is now clean of tributes.
But the people are compelled to leave their messages, tributes, art, and artifacts. And so they go to a gray, plywood wall on the south edge of the site. It gets covered with words and objects; then (sadly) the wall gets painted gray again; then they come back and cover it again.
I watched people from all over the world spend a long time — 10, 20 minutes each — contemplating what to write on the wall and writing it.
They write poems. They draw pictures. They send heartfelt messages to New York. They leave paintings. They hang up flowers. They leave pieces of themselves, because they clearly feel they must.
Here is a gallery of some of the people and some of what they have to say at the World Trade Center memorial wall.
