City officials balk at size of planned Sept. 11 memorial

0 Comments | Gazette, The (Colorado Springs), Sep 9, 2005 | by ED SEALOVER THE GAZETTE

A colossal national monument proposed for Memorial Park to honor the victims of the Sept. 11 attacks is meeting with questions and opposition from Colorado Springs leaders.

The parks and recreation advisory board was asked to back a concept plan Thursday but refused. Most members said they are uncomfortable with the monument's size.

The board postponed a vote on the plan until its October meeting.

The decision left the sculptor, Stan Watts of Utah, unsure whether he can finish the project by September 2006, the fifth anniversary of the attacks, as he had planned. The board vote was necessary for him to start raising money to build the 60-foot-tall monument, he said.

The Arts Commission of the Pikes Peak Region is set to weigh in on the proposal Sept. 20. Commission Chairman Ron Brasch already has questioned whether the large monument is suitable for the park and whether it belongs in Colorado Springs.

Rather than wait for that meeting, the International Association of Firefighters, which has led the memorial push for three years, plans to take its case to the City Council. Local President Mike Smaldino said he was shocked that the parks board didn't embrace the sculpture idea.

"We can't keep dragging our feet on it," Smaldino said after the parks board meeting. "This thing can't be ready on September 15th. It has to be ready on September 11th."

The bronze monument, named "To Lift a Nation," would feature three 18-foot-tall firefighters raising the American flag above the ruins of the World Trade Center. The image is from a well-known photograph taken shortly after the terrorist attacks.

It would sit on a 12-foot pedestal surrounded by a concrete viewing area in an open spot northeast of Prospect Lake. The IAFF, which plans to carve the names of everyone killed in the attacks into its concrete base, would pay for construction and for expansion of a nearby parking lot and would establish a fund to maintain and light the monument.

The firefighters union, which also built and maintains the national Fallen Firefighters Memorial in the park, wanted the Sept. 11 sculpture in New York or Washington, D.C., two sites of the hijacked jetliner crashes. But New York wanted something smaller at the World Trade Center site, and Washington officials said it would take 10 to 40 years to put it on the National Mall, Watts said.

So the IAFF approached Colorado Springs, which was preferred because of its military community and connection to events such as Katharine Lee Bates' visit to Pikes Peak inspiring her to write "America the Beautiful," local IAFF Vice President Jerry Montella said.

Parks board members supported the concept. But they balked at the sculpture's size, which is three times life-size.

Member Thomas Russell said that unless the design is made more subtle, he doesn't see it fitting in.

"This is so big that it seems like we're trying to build a tourist attraction instead of some kind of memorial monument, cashing in on a famous photograph," Russell said.

Watts said he designed it in a "colossal" style because the event it recalls is so important.

"People will come from all over America to see it," he said. "The moment is too big in history to just do it regular size."

The only board member backing the concept was Daisy Chun Rhodes.

Smaldino said he thinks he can muster support from other areas of the community to hasten the project.

Mayor Lionel Rivera said Thursday, however, that he also has questions about the project. He said he would prefer that it go through the normal channels of recommendation from the city's advisory boards before coming to the council.

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