Hartsdale's 9-11 Memorial Wall to be torn down
Early next week (probably on Monday) the 9-11 memorial wall at Richard Presser Park will be torn down. A new memorial design will be discussed by members of the Greenburgh Town Board and should be approved in the coming months. Possible new location: Greenburgh Town Hall. The Rotary Clubs have expressed interest in contributing towards the new memorial. They were involved in the funding of the wall.
In 2003 the town dedicated a 9-11memorial wall to honor the memories of the victims of 9-11. The wall has been located at Richard Presser Park on Central Ave in Hartsdale.? Over 1800 tiles were placed on one side of the wall, painted by residents of the county. A piece of metal from the World Trade Center is attached to the wall. The other side—featured illustrations painted by an artist commissioned by Rotary. Rotary contributed to the cost of the wall.
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Sadly, the wall has never held up. We had to repair the wall twice –tiles cracked from the mural. Hundreds of tiles have fallen-many unusable.
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(see NY Times article from 2011:
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There were construction deficiencies making it very difficult to reattach the tiles (we tried to reattach the tiles twice). Issues of damp, drainage were involved. The painting on the Rotary side is also not holding up since the paint the artist used was not weather resistant.
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This is a link from a post Sarah Bracey White wrote highlighting a previous restoration effort:
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Last year, after more tiles started falling down and cracking – we removed all the tiles from the wall. We retained a consultant AM Art Conservation. If we had chosen to repair the existing wall the cost will be high (could be in the range of $100,000) and there is no guarantee that the wall will last.
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The Town Board had a meeting last fall discussing the wall.. The link to the discussion can be found here:
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9/11 Memorial Wall:
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Once the wall Is down Richard Presser Park will have more open space for residents to enjoy.
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PAUL FEINER
Greenburgh Town Supervisor.