NYT Syndicate
Fritz Koenig's 'Sphere for Plaza Fountain', once the sculptural centrepiece of the World Trade Center, will be reinstalled there this year, returning a visceral symbol of death and rebirth to an understated ” and all but sanitised ” landscape.
The 27-foot-high bronze 'Sphere' will no longer rest on the exact spot it occupied on September 11, 2001, when the twin towers crashed to earth around it. What was once the centre of the Austin J Tobin Plaza, where it stood, would now be in the middle of a restored Greenwich Street.
Instead, under a resolution approved on by the board of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, the 25-ton piece will be transported from the Battery, hoisted up into the new elevated Liberty Park and set down near the St Nicholas National Shrine, which is under construction.
"I recommend that we bring the Koenig 'Sphere' home," said Patrick J Foye, the executive director of the Port Authority, describing the plan to the commissioners. They approved the move unanimously.
The Port Authority board also approved spending as much as $600 million as part of a $4 billion reconstruction by Delta Air Lines of Terminals C and D at La Guardia Airport. Construction is to begin next year. The main building of a new 37-gate Delta terminal would open in 2020. Foye said the entire project would take seven years, and would coincide with the reconstruction of the aging Central Terminal Building.
Koenig, the sculptor of the 'Sphere', learned that the vote was coming up.
"He is now 92 years old but still very interested in the fate of his 'child,'" said Stefanje Weinmayr, of the Fritz and Maria Koenig Foundation in Landshut, Germany, who relayed the news to Koenig at his home."He was not happy with the last placement in Battery Park. The possibility of a better situation electrified him."
The 'Sphere' will overlook the plaza of the National September 11 Memorial, which wanted nothing to do with the sculpture. Neither did the nonprofit conservancy that manages the Battery, at the southern tip of Manhattan, where Koenig's work has spent the last 14 years.
In contrast, the St Nicholas National Shrine welcomed its new neighbour.
"I was, and am, all for putting the 'Sphere' on Liberty Park, where it belongs," said Father Alexander Karloutsos, a protopresbyter, or archpriest, who has represented the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America in its dealings with the Port Authority. He is also in charge of fundraising for the shrine.
As the veil of smoke and dust over the area lifted in the autumn of 2001, and the mountainous rubble was cleared away, Koenig's sculpture could once again be seen. It was an incongruous sight, simultaneously heartening and dismaying; golden against the grim gray of destruction, an orb among the shards, tattered but still largely intact. It was treated with reverence.
In 2002, the 'Sphere' was reinstalled in the Battery and rededicated as New York's official"interim memorial." Local officials rallied to the defence of the sculpture two years later when it seemed to be threatened by a transit project.
After the permanent memorial opened in 2011, the 'Sphere' seemed to fade from civic consciousness, even though it claimed the attention of the thousands of visitors to the Battery. Maintenance was neglected and the sculpture was shunted around the park.
Michael R Bloomberg, who was then the mayor of New York and was (and still is) the chairman of the memorial foundation, had the most say about the future of the 'Sphere'.
But he said nothing publicly, other than that the sculpture looked beautiful where it was.
His cryptic pronouncement seemed to foreclose on any chance that the 'Sphere' would be placed on the memorial plaza. The Port Authority was no more forthcoming with its plans, though Foye said he thought the 'Sphere' ought to return.
In this vacuum of official leadership, the most forceful voice belonged to Michael Burke, whose brother, Captain William F Burke Jr of Engine Company 21, was killed in the 2001 attack. William Burke's rig is on permanent display in the National September 11 Memorial Museum.
Michael Burke wanted, above all, to see the 'Sphere' incorporated into the current memorial. But he said this week that Liberty Park had its advantages."It's quieter than the hustle and bustle and Pok`mon Go atmosphere of the memorial," he said."There were a few tourists laying about on the benches, a family. Office workers heading to Battery Park City flowed by. Placed there, it could invoke the 'Sphere' and the World Trade Center plaza in the days before the attacks."
"It's a symbol of world peace that survived the terror that seems to have come to define our times," Burke said."Visitors to this place, of all places, need the opportunity to see it."
"After Paris (we were there just three weeks before the November attacks), San Bernardino, Brussels, Orlando, Istanbul," he said,"visitors to this place have to see more than trees and waterfalls."