Proposed Redondo Beach Memorial Will Keep 9-11 Close

Group wants to place twin towers piece at Civic Center, where visitors will be able to touch it.

By Kristin S. Agostoni
Daily Breeze
December 4, 2007

They want people to walk up to it, run their hands over it, remember it.

A Redondo Beach leadership group tasked with designing the city's 9-11 monument has suggested the Civic Center as the site for the memorial centered on a steel beam from the twin towers at the World Trade Center.

Tonight, the class sponsored by the Chamber of Commerce & Visitors Bureau will ask the City Council for permission to build the monument almost on its doorstep - in a planter between council chambers and the library on Pacific Coast Highway.

The 300-pound artifact was gifted to the city's police and fire associations earlier this year from the Fire Department of New York. Since then the leadership group has sought to find a location, design and budget for a memorial, with the goal of completing the work by Sept. 11, 2008.

"We wanted to put (the monument) in a place that's very accessible to the public," said Tom Krafick, a city police captain who serves as project leader for Leadership Redondo Class of 2007.

"It's not often that a community has an opportunity to have an artifact like we do."

Krafick said the class of 14 current and future civic leaders studied four locations before recommending the Civic Center spot, which sees a good deal of foot traffic and has adequate space for special events and parking.

The group ranked the Civic Center location above Czuleger Park on Catalina Avenue, a historic area in Dominguez Park and a pedestrian plaza near the International Boardwalk on the pier, according to a staff report.

And Krafick said his classmates considered a handful of ideas before settling on a 7-foot vertical design created by local landscape architect Deborah Richie-Bray, a classmate.

The design, which fits the group's $45,000 budget, features a bronze or stainless steel sphere-shaped sundial positioned above the rectangular steel beam, which would sit on top of a gleaming granite pedestal.

The pedestal, which could also be built of basalt, is supposed to symbolize the twin towers before the 9-11 terrorist attacks, Richie-Bray said.

The day "is something that will be marked in time," she explained, but the sundial is meant to represent a sign of hope.

"Each day the sun rises and each day it sets," Krafick added, "but we will never forget."

A plaque on the front will include a timeline from 8:46 to 10:03 a.m. Sept. 11, 2001, recounting the time the first plane hit the World Trade Center's south tower to the last plane crash in Shanksville, Pa.

The leadership class also recommends that the script on the front of the monument recognize everyone who died or sacrificed their lives on 9-11.

City firefighters said that request came from the Fire Department of New York, which sent the beam to Redondo Beach in January. The department's only other condition was that people be able to walk up to it and touch it.

HOW TO HELP

The Leadership Redondo Class of 2007 has roughly $15,000 but hopes to raise $45,000 to complete the project. Information about the 9-11 tribute, tax-deductible donation and sponsorship forms and updates about the events can be found at www.9-11Tribute.org, or contact Tom Krafick at lrb.tribute@gmail.com.

The Leadership Redondo Class of 2007 has roughly $15,000 but hopes to raise $45,000 to complete the project.

Information about the 9-11 tribute, tax-deductible donation and sponsorship forms and updates about the events can be found at www.9-11Tribute.org, or contact Tom Krafick at lrb.tribute@gmail.com.

Checks can be made payable to the city of Redondo Beach, Project 9-11 Fund, and mailed c/o Payroll Management Solutions, 5155 W. Rosecrans Ave., Suite 1065, Hawthorne, CA 90250.