A Tribute to 9/11 Victims

By Nathaly Cisneros

The September 11 attacks still affect many Americans 21 years later. In the decades since, many artists have come together to create artwork and memorials that honor its victims. Sylvia Laudien-Meo, an art historian, museum educator, and NYC tour guide hosted a webinar where she discussed such artwork by artists such as Eric Fischl, Jessica Jamroz, and Doug and Mike Starn.

Empty Sky Memorial, 2011
Liberty State Park in New Jersey
Designed by Jessica Jamroz and Frederic Schwartz

Jessica Jamroz and Frederick Schwartz created the “Empty Sky Memorial” in 2011. Schwartz is an architect who created memorials in New Jersey and Westchester County in honor of the victims of 9/11. “Here you walk through in between these two walls that have all the names, the proportion of these walls relates to the proportions of the tower and its focused on ground zero,” said Laudien-Meo. “You can have the light that used to be lit more permanently in the past, now it’s just for 9/11.”

Weehawken, Port Imperial Boulevard
Melillo & Bauer Associates and Linda Tycher and Associates

Weehawken is located in Hoboken, New Jersey, and is oriented towards the World Trade Center site. According to Laudien-Meo, Weehawken is where 60,000 people received medical attention, water, and food after they were evacuated from Lower Manhattan. “These are two of 13 tridents that survived,” she said. Weehawken lost five residents on 9/11 and it recently held its Annual Interfaith Memorial Service at Pier A Park on September 11. “This artwork is very powerful and leaves so much room for thought,” said Laudien-Meo.

Witness
Todd Stone

This is one of Stone’s paintings from his series, Witness, which depicts the succession of events at the World Trade Center on 9/11 as seen from his home just six blocks north of the site. “Witness is my elegy to what I saw the day he world changed,” Stone said. “I said to myself, ‘I’m making a song for the people who died. And I am going to make it as beautiful a song as I can.’”

10:01
Todd Stone

This is another one of Stone’s paintings from his series Witness. In both of these paintings, Stone rubbed World Trade Center ash into his watercolor paper, turning it from white to dull gray.

Trembling Woman
Eric Fischl

Artist Eric Fischl experienced people jumping and falling from the Twin Towers through the media and felt compelled to use his art to help people understand what happened that day. He created Tumbling Woman as a sign of compassion and respect for those who had fallen. This sculpture was installed a year after the attacks at Rockefeller Center. “This to me was a very intriguing piece of work,” said Laudien-Meo. “I find this to be a very beautiful sculpture that helps people come together after the tragedy.”

Fallen #7
Doug and Mike Starn

Single pieces of paper blew out of the Twin Towers across the East River into Brooklyn on 9/11. Twin brothers Doug and Mike collected a few pieces instead of discarding them because they felt it was “a part of the people who had died” and integrated them into their art. This lead to their Fallen series which had begun before 9/11 but was altered after the attacks happened. All of this artwork honors the lives of the victims of 9/11 and teaching children the history that has so profoundly impacted so many Americans.