Tracey Hummer stood near the end of the Empty Sky Memorial in Liberty State Park on Sept. 7, just prior to ceremonies commemorating those who had perished in the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. Many of the hundreds who came to pay tribute took the memorial walk down the granite path between two walls engraved with the names of the 749 New Jersey residents who died that day. Many came looking for the names of their loved ones.
For Hummer, the monument was also a tribute to her late husband Fredrick Schwartz, even though his name is not among those engraved into the walls. Schwartz was one of the designers of the memorial and never missed a commemoration – until this year.
He died in April after a long bout with cancer. For Hummer, staring down at the crowded interior, the monument was a testimony to his spirit as well.
Out of 320 qualified entries in the international competition, the Families and Survivors Memorial Committee chose the final design. Jessica Jamroz, the co-designer, said the memorial’s twin walls bracket a granite path that points across the Hudson River to lower Manhattan where the Twin Towers once stood.
The 30-foot-high rectangular towers stretch 208 feet, 10 inches long, the exact width of the World Trade Center towers, and are a symbolic representation of the buildings as if they were lying on their sides.
The name of the memorial is taken from the Bruce Springsteen song “Empty Sky,” which is about the “empty sky” where the towers once stood.
In fashioning the design for the official New Jersey memorial, Jamroz said, Schwartz spent a lot of time listening to the friends, family members and co-workers of the victims, trying to get a sense of what they felt, rather than to act on a preconceived notion,.
“This was designed to reflect the faces of the people who are looking,” said Jamroz.
Once he had a vision of what he thought the monument should be, Schwartz pushed ahead to make it a reality. His was a determination of such force that people like Hummer and Jamroz say they can feel his essence along the walk, even though his name is not among the honored dead.
Like many, Schwartz had lost friends in the attack. He had taken on the project as a personal mission.
Still mourning her husband’s death, Hummer stared down the long aisle at the clusters of people who paused inside, including the U.S. Navy sailors who would make up the color guard for the official ceremony. Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno made her way down, pausing to talk to the sailors and to look at the names on the walls.
“They are inscribed in our hearts as we try to make sense of this,” Guadagno said later. “If there is anything hopeful in all this, is that this becomes a lesson to our children to understand what we are fighting for, and what we are living for.”
Like many of the others, Guadagno, and Hummer came away from the memorial looking a little sad, their grief refreshed by the memory of a day no one who lived through it could ever forget.
Above them, a blue sky spotted with puffy white clouds resembled that day 13 years ago when the two hijacked airliners struck the Twin Towers.
The state’s ceremony was held on Sept. 7 to allow people to attend local ceremonies on the Sept. 11 itself, said Faith Miller, chair of the New Jersey 9/11 Memorial Foundation.
Seared in our memories
U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ), who also attended the event, said the world changed forever on Sept. 11, 2001. He said the park where the ceremony is being held served as a staging area as people rallied to help on that day 13 years ago.
“On that day the world changed forever,” he said. “The 749 New Jersey residents are not just etched in the walls of the memorial but seared in our memories. We can see clearly how Sept. 11 changed the way we live. We watched the Arab Spring move into a winter of unrest.”
He said everyone was gathering not just to remember the people who died on Sept. 11, but what they stood for, the first responders who gave their lives trying to rescue others.
Events like this are also a reminder to be vigilant, he said, so that there can never be another day like that in which so many innocent people perish.
Guadagno said they gather to mourn those who passed, but also who they could have been. She celebrated the first responders who gave their lives trying to save others. She said people gather to reflect and stand together, defying the terrorists aims.
“We commit ourselves to do more, to help those that are more vulnerable than we are, to not let the terrorists win, and to educate the next generation so they will understand what this is about,” she said.
Jersey City Fire Department Battalion Chief John Alston said he was off duty when the attacks occurred. He was switching TV providers so he had to go to a neighbor’s home to watch the events.
“This is a tough anniversary,” he said. “We all lost friends. We should never forget, but we should also remember those that survived. I don’t think we can ever return to normal or look at things the same way as we did before that day. But remembering is the best things we can do. It allows us to win over the terrorists.”
Al Sullivan may be reached at asullivan@hudsonreporter.com.