9/11 Commemoration and Remembrance Ceremony Wednesday at High Rock
Tempered by Memory Sculpture at High Rock Park in Saratoga Springs. Photo by Thomas Dimopoulos.
SARATOGA SPRINGS —The City of Saratoga Springs will host a 9/11 Commemoration and Remembrance Ceremony at High Rock Park on Wednesday, Sept. 11 at the Tempered by Memory Sculpture. Attendees are asked to arrive at 8:15 a.m., with the ceremony slated to promptly begin at 8:30.
On Sept. 11, 2001, terrorists killed nearly 3,000 people and injured more than 6,000 others in what the U.S. Department of State refers to as “the worst attack against the homeland in our nation’s history.”
The ceremony in Saratoga Springs will take place at High Rock Park, which since 2012 has been host site to a 25-foot-tall sculpture created from 9/11 steel.
The sculpture was commissioned by Saratoga Arts and created by artists Noah Savett and John Van Alstine from five twisted pieces of Trade Center steel. Four pieces came from the North Tower, one came from the South Tower.
The High Rock site was selected after a lengthy public and political discourse regarding the location placement of the “Tempered By Memory” sculpture.
Initially slated to stand in front of the Saratoga Springs City Center and to be unveiled on the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, that location was nixed shortly before the ceremony was to take place when some officials said it would interfere with the view from out front of the center.
Instead, the sculpture remained in a parking lot in Northumberland at artist Noah Savett’s metal company yard, awaiting a permanent home. It was there that a ceremony was held to mark the 10th anniversary of the attacks in 2011.
“We took the broken pieces of that day, we raised them up, we let them soar – we gave them a place to rest,” Yaddo poet Joan Murray read during the 10th anniversary ceremony attended by more than 100 steelworkers and celebrating the healing power of art to transcend grief and sorrow.
Then-city Mayor Scott Johnson appointed a committee that same month and charged it with recommending a location for the sculpture. Sites next to the state military museum, the city firehouse and near the city school campus had been considered, as well as alongside the Saratoga Springs Heritage Area Visitor Center on Broadway and in Congress Park.
High Rock Park was eventually selected which has since September 2012 served as the city’s annual remembrance ceremony location.