After 13 years, two failed bonds, one rejected design, and an estimated $500,000 spent so far, the city of Hoboken appears poised to renew efforts to build a permanent memorial to the Hoboken residents who died in the terrorist attacks of Sep. 11, 2001.
A bond ordinance, which the administration of Mayor Dawn Zimmer says is necessary in order to fund the project, failed the last time it was presented to the City Council in March 2013. However, based on the statements of some council members at Wednesday’s council meeting, Zimmer believes she now has the six votes necessary to pass a bond, and a new ordinance is being prepared by the city.
The current proposed memorial calls for two symmetrical, semicircular platforms adorned with rows of vertical glass panels near Sinatra Drive in Pier A Park. The structures would be etched with messages and designed to allow visitors to sit and contemplate. Together, they are meant to evoke the World Trade Center towers.
Currently, the only physical memorials to 9/11 victims in Hoboken are the 40 gingko biloba trees in Pier A Park planted in alignment with the former World Trade Center footprint. A temporary glass memorial in the shape of a teardrop, also in Pier A Park, was removed in 2011 after it was determined that it could not withstand harsh weather.
Hoboken lost 57 residents on 9/11, the most of any zipcode in the United States.
Word is bond
The issue of a permanent 9/11 Memorial came up in the City Council this past Wednesday after Councilwoman Theresa Castellano questioned why the city was paying another $500 claim for the storage of glass panels. She believed they were the remains of the teardrop, but Community Development Director Brandy Forbes informed the council that they were glass panels bought during the tenure of Mayor David Roberts for a permanent memorial.
In response to further questions, Forbes estimated the cost of finishing the new memorial at $650,000.
Councilman Michael Russo, one of four council members who opposed to the last 9/11 memorial bond ordinance in 2013, said he would be willing to support a bond in the range of $500,000. “The details can be worked out,” said Russo. “Let’s get it to move forward so that the citizenry of Hoboken have that memorial in their own hometown…we were the second to New York that lost the most, and our families deserve it.”
“We were the second to New York that lost the most, and our families deserve it.” – Michael Russo
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Zimmer said she was “very cautious but very hopeful” that a bond could be approved. She said the new bond would include the cost of new glass panels that could withstand construction and hurricane winds better than those currently held by the city.
“Through the bidding process,” said Zimmer, “it has been determined that the [current] glass panels potentially…could not withstand a major storm like a Sandy event.”
In tandem with seeking with a new bond, Zimmer plans to get a second opinion from another engineer on the glass situation, possibly using some of the remaining grant money.
Forbes said she has looked into buying special DuPont laminated glass, which withstood the gales of Sandy on the observation deck of Rockefeller Center in New York.
“I certainly don’t want to build something where, if there’s a major storm, there is possibly going to be pieces of glass” on the ground, said Zimmer.
The memorial will be taken up in the City Council’s South committee this upcoming week. The soonest a new ordinance could be presented is at the next City Council meeting on Sept. 17.
Following the money
Despite growing support for a bond, several council members who are not aligned with Zimmer continued to question where the money Hoboken received for a 9/11 memorial over the years has gone.
On Wednesday, Forbes said that $500,000 had been spent on design and materials overall so far. She said $250,000 in donations went to the design of an artificial island memorial that would be built off of Pier A, which would have cost an estimated $6 million to build. After this original design was rejected as too expensive, said Forbes, $100,000 was spent on the design of the current proposal.
The city still has $150,000 left from a $250,000 grant from the New Jersey Department of Community Affairs earmarked for a memorial, but could lose it if does not produce a structure fast enough.
Castellano still wants a full accounting of all the funding now gone. She believes the money funded “a lot of lunches at Amanda’s,” the upscale Hoboken restaurant, for consultants and engineers.
On Wednesday, Councilman Tim Occhipinti questioned why the money for the memorial had to come from a bond and not the city’s multi-million dollar surplus.
“Why weren’t funds from the surplus put into a line item in the budget to complete this project?” asked Occhipinti. He answered his own question: “This has just never been a priority of the Zimmer administration.”
Councilman Ravi Bhalla said it was “frankly reprehensible” that Occhipinti was using the memorial to “throw stones” at Zimmer, and added that Occhipinti could have introduced a budget amendment if he had wanted.
The Zimmer administration initially requested a $2.6 million bond for the rehabilitation of Pier A, $250,000 of which would have gone towards installing a 9/11 memorial, in August 2012. In October of that year, the ordinance was pulled after being carried over to multiple meetings.
Their second attempt, a $500,000 bond, was rejected by the council on March 20, 2013.
Bringing up the rear
Hoboken will likely be the last major city in Hudson County to get a 9/11 memorial. Union City and Secaucus have both had memorials since at least 2007. Bayonne has the Tear of Grief memorial at the end of the MOTBY Terminal, a gift from Russian President Vladimir Putin at a time of better relations.
New Jersey’s state memorial in Liberty State Park and Weehawken’s memorial built from steel salvaged from the World Trade Center were both dedicated around the tenth anniversary of the attacks in September 2011. And of course, New York City’s own 9/11 Memorial and Museum opened this past May at Ground Zero to mixed reviews.
Services scheduled
The city will also hold its annual interfaith memorial service at the end of Pier A at 6:30 p.m. on Sept. 11. A list of the 57 Hobokenites who died in the 9/11 attacks will be read, followed by remarks from various clergy from the Hoboken area.
The Catholic Church of Our Lady of Grace will also hold a special mass at 10:30 a.m. on Sunday, Sept. 7 to honor the first responders who died on 9/11 and those who still serve. Representatives from the Hoboken Police and Fire Departments, the Hoboken Volunteer Ambulance Corps, the Hudson County Sherriff’s Office and the Port Authority Police Bagpipers will be on hand to process into the church.
Carlo Davis may be reached at cdavis@hudsonreporter.com.