September 11, 2001, Documentary Project
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Spontaneous Memorials
Shortly after the attacks of September 11, family and friends of people missing in New York placed home-made posters on fences and walls around the city. Each poster showed a missing person’s name and picture, along with information about where he or she worked; those posting pictures clearly hoped that someone might have seen their loved ones, perhaps injured or otherwise unable to find their way home. Liberty Rose Elgart wrote a poem about these posters, “26th Street in Manhattan.”
With time, the posters evolved, containing more descriptive information about the missing persons, likely to help with identification of bodies. Finally, the posters became memorials, honoring those who had been lost. They thus became part of a relatively recent tradition called spontaneous memorials—collections of objects left at significant sites to honor people whose lives have been lost. For example, after the massacre at Columbine High School, more than 200,000 objects were left at the park across the street from the school. Spontaneous memorials allow loved ones and strangers to acknowledge the sorrow they share in the wake of a tragedy, creating what some call a “community of bereavement.”
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Spontaneous memorials, because they are constructed from contributions from the public, such as flowers, pictures, poems, candles, and other objects, are usually ephemeral; that is, they do not last long. Although objects may be collected and archived, the memorial itself is short-lived. Monuments built of stone, steel, and glass, while permanent memorials to people or events, often lack the personal element many find powerful in spontaneous memorials.
In her narrative, Catherine A. Fitzpatrick calls for the posters created by loved ones of those killed in the attacks to be incorporated into permanent memorials:
If someday they build a memorial, I hope it will have some elements in its design that reflect those posters, billowing in the wind, tattered and covered with that strange gray silt that covered everything in New York City in the days after 9/11, which we touched and smoothed out countless times on the wall to try to see the faces of our fellow New Yorkers who were obliterated in a matter of hours.
Excerpted from “Narrative by Catherine Fitzpatrick”
View photographs of spontaneous memorials that sprang up after September 11. Also research other memorials, such as the National World War II Memorial, the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, the AIDS quilt, and the Lincoln Memorial.
- What is the purpose of a memorial?
- What are the strengths of spontaneous memorials in achieving the purpose of a memorial? What are the weaknesses of spontaneous memorials in achieving the purpose of a memorial?
- Which of the memorials you examined was, in your view, most effective in achieving the purpose of a memorial? What made the memorial effective?
- Do you agree with Catherine Fitzpatrick’s suggestion that the posters created by loved ones should be incorporated into a memorial to those killed on September 11? Why or why not?
- Could the strengths of the spontaneous memorials be incorporated into a permanent memorial without using actual materials from or representations of the spontaneous memorials? Explain your answer.
- Sketch a September 11 memorial that incorporates your ideas about what makes a memorial effective. Write a paragraph explaining your design.