April 8, 2004

Assembling at St. Paul’s Chapel near the World Trade Center site this morning, the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation announced the formation of a Memorial Center Advisory Committee, which will play a major role in guiding the development of the Memorial Center at Ground Zero.

The site will sit under ground and hold remnants from the 9/11 attacks. It will also present the story of the attacks of September 11, 2001 and of February 26, 1993, among other elements.

The 24 members of the committee will include police and fire personnel like New York Police Department Deputy Commissioner Paul Browne and the Fire Department of New York’s Brooklyn Chief, Salvatore Cassano; architects like J. Max Bond Jr.; curators and museum administrators like Ramond Gastil, Executive Director of the Van Alen Institute and Tom Finkelpearl, director of the Queens Museum of Art; 9/11 Victims’ Family members like Michael Macko, a member of the LMDC Families Advisory Committee and Virginia Bauer, wife of a victim who worked at Cantor Fitzgerald financial firm. Other members come from the preservation, academic, government, community, business communities.

The LMDC said that the Committee will produce recommendations related to the curatorial mission and program elements of the Memorial Center that will be submitted for public review. One major recommendation will pertain to the display of artifacts from the World Trade Center site. These likely will include Fritz Koenig’s "Sphere," a large sculpture that survived the attacks, parts of the steel skeleton from the original Twin Towers, and many other items left in the wake of the 9/11 Terrorist Attacks.

"We look forward to working with the committee and thank all of the dedicated men and women who have agreed to give their time and share their experience to contribute to the vital work of shaping the memorial center," said LMDC President Kevin Rampe.

Sam Lubell