Thousands of designs submitted for World Trade Center memorial

By KAREN MATTHEWS, Associated Press
Last Updated 5:39 p.m. PDT Thursday, July 17, 2003

NEW YORK (AP) - In record-breaking numbers, more than 5,200 individuals and groups from around the globe submitted proposals for a memorial to those died in the World Trade Center attack, officials announced Thursday.

The competition to design the memorial yielded extraordinary results: Proposals were received from 62 countries and every state but Alaska.

"The tremendous response this petition has received from individuals at home and abroad is a true testament of the unity people from around the world have demonstrated since the Sept. 11 attacks," Gov. George E. Pataki said.

The memorial is to include references to the Feb. 26, 1993, bombing at the trade center as well as the Sept. 11 attacks.

It is to be built on a 4.7-acre site encompassing the so-called "footprints" where the center's twin towers stood. A design competition to create a master plan for the entire ground zero site was held earlier this year.

The 5,200 submissions are a record in a design competition for a memorial, officials for the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation said. The previous record was 1,421 submissions for the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, D.C.

Applicants had to mail their designs to a warehouse where they were checked for anthrax, chemical agents and explosives before being shipped to a second, undisclosed location where the jury will review them.

"Simply by participating, each competitor honors and helps memorialize all those who died on Sept. 11, 2001, and Feb. 26, 1993," said Anita Contini, who heads the memorial process for the development corporation.

A 13-member jury is to choose a handful of finalists in September and a winner later in the fall. The competition was open to anyone over age 18 who paid a fee of $25.

The jurors chosen to pick a design includes Vietnam Veterans' Memorial designer Maya Lin and Paula Grant Berry, whose husband, David, was killed at the trade center.

Some of the submissions will be disqualified because they fail to follow published guidelines, Contini said, but added the jury would see all of them.

"I'm thrilled that there's a very vibrant level of interest," said William Stratas, a Toronto Web developer who is part of a three-person team that submitted a proposal. "I believe that even if you don't make finalist you do have the opportunity to sculpt the result."