Community Corner

Tarrytown Hopes to Have New 9/11 Monument for Next Year

The village of Tarrytown has obtained a piece of World Trade Center that they intend to have incorporated into a 9/11 memorial sculpture in time for next year’s anniversary.

One possibility, proposed by Yonkers sculptor/designer Robert Neal Carpenter, would stand about 6 feet tall. Two distressed steel I-beams lean into each other in this rough draft with the WTC steel, about 2 feet by 2 feet in size and weighing about 75 pounds, resting across the beams.

The piece would be welded to steel pins sticking out of a concrete base, and cost the village about $6,500, estimated the artist in a letter to DPW Superintendent Howard Wessels.

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The monument will stand proud somewhere in Patriot’s Park, exact placement to be determined, Village Administrator Mike Blau said, noting that the village hasn't at all landed yet on this design or artist and aims to include the fire department in the planning.

“At last year’s 9-11 ceremony, a request was made to me that we should see if we can get some steel from the WTC,” Blau said. “We will be working with the Fire Department in developing an appropriate monument for the inclusion of the steel.”

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How does one get their hands on WTC steel? The village requested it from NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s office. 

The artist the village has talked with has one very notable item in his resume from Tarrytown – Carpenter helped restore the Tarrytown House Estate and Conference Center’s King House to its former 1840s glory. A New Times article about it in the 1980s wrote,  

FROM Gothic gargoyles to 19th-century French consoles, there is very little that Robert Neal Carpenter, a [then-]42-year-old sculptor, cannot reproduce. 

The King House… had four broken capitals, a wooden fireplace mantel that had lost many carved leaves and flowers, and a mirror frame in need of repair.

In a month or so, Mr. Carpenter duplicated the missing pieces, striving to match the original styles. 


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