Nations past. And our moderator for todays discussion, braided painter, the director of methodology at the International Coalition. A Global Network of Historic Site museums and Memory Initiative that connects past and present changing the world, one memory at a time and as part of his effort, braided has trained hundreds of organizations and Dialogue Community engagement planning and operating at the intersection of history and justice. Thank you marcia and hi everyone, my name is braden ater and im the director of the International Coalition of conscious of the coalition is a network of beginning the Historic Sites and places of memory, more than 330 sites and more than 65 countries around the world were regularly seen communities of around the globe thinking about how to use memorials and places to think about the past feel in the present and youve been to move into the future. In a more just and humane future and really excited to talk to you all today and hear from these folks who are doing is really important work and a number of memorials around the United States. If we are lucky enough to be joined today by Stephen Clark superintendent of the National Parks of western pennsylvania which include oversight of flight 93 National Memorial and executive director of the pentagon memorial fund, and another executive director of the National Law Enforcement memorial and one follows today and Amy Weinstein curator oral history and Vice President of collections for the National September 11th memorial. Welcome everybody thanks for being with us today. And maybe just get us started to think about the rules that memorials can play in our many communities and if we could just step with each of your memorials came from and could you tell people a little bit about the how your memorials was created and who created it and with her hopes were for it and they had in mind as they were creating that. Pat would you get us started pretty. Absolutely of the two of the most beautiful spot in the world to me, National Law Enforcement officers memorial located in washington dc, in 1984 and 1988 and also those two years the congressman, they went on an effort to try to make it National Enforcement officer memorial a reality and they do so 1988 and it took until 1991 for memorial to be a reality which well see today at washington dc. And it was made for everyone without Law Enforcement family select a lost loved one and for citizens they served and protected him for generations and years faithfully known as they died in the line of duty and this is the most amazing place that you can see when you walk through it and today i had a conversation it briefly with our ceo marcia and it she said will how are you feeling about this i said i feel these powerful stories and contributions yet to be exposed because each and every one of those on that wall were there because they chose that profession they chose to be there for their duty. No one chooses to die was a possibility so this Memorial Service to recognize them, not annually, every day and thats what we choose to do here at the memorial and weve grown obviously from the museum and we have grown twopoint were trying to keep our offices safe for the safety and wellness and the person who created our memorial, would be remiss not to say buckley, our architect in his duty as displayed and as we see again, his artwork as he goes unfortunately, and expansion of because our wall is growing because each and every year officers die and unfortunately, a living memorial we currently set at 22611 souls and officers men and women it now to be that moving forward next year and again as we in may of 22 and unfortunately again it will be sharing those names printed thank you. And thank you. And thank you and what pat just said, one respondent and while also explaining so will see what i can do. The National September 11, memorial was created of an International Design competition which began in early 2020, but really the desire to create a memorial began within a few days after 911, at least in new york and i think around the country and around the world, people began the ideas about what might be appropriate. Among those people was michael, an israeli born american architect who sketched out some ideas about water in doing a memorial and deliberate in the hudson but there was an official organize International Design competition and michael submitted an entry and he is part of the process, he and peter walker, architect came together to evolve the design. And it has a name, called reflections and it reflects the absence of life that the trees reflect the growth of life in the movement and progress of time. Something pat said about expanding the memorial, weve only been open a few years but we realized that with so many people dying because of 911, related health consequences, and health issues, cancers and respiratory issues, that we wanted to do something to honor their loss we created a new section of the memorial called glade. Is a bit more abstract and that there are no names on the glade. As there are around the north and and south part of the pool and we wont know all those names because as part of you more years to come but they are honored collectively. And for us, september, guess its a date in the calendar but it is something were acutely aware of and live every day. Thank you and were going to move in to do a wrap up of introductions and then will get to some of those responses. Thats one of the values of coming together with all of your different experiences and to be able to share and build together for maybe add something and thinking about the memorialization it in their own life and world in some way. Thank you. Thank you and good afternoon. On superintendent of the 93 National Memorial collectively with our partnerships and our volunteers, which of the story of the United Airlines flight 93. It was hijacked airliner on september 11th, 2001. So the beginning it of the memorial similar to what amy and pat and shared, and with that really kind of came from the ground up read kind of a concept that immediately following september 11, that one of the attack sites, was going to become part of the National Park system. A branch of the department of interior and always a series of a processes and flight 93 came to be that unit of the National Park system. So often the National Parks take decades to the research and ultimately congress and the president s signed into law but remarkably this case, george w. Bush signed the memorial into law in september 24, 2002 pretty suggested little over a year which is again unheard of in flight 93, National Memorial was born into a series of a tremendous partnerships and many years parcels of land were purchased and then finally the ten Year Anniversary in 2011, on the plaza in the wall of the names and it was created and dedicated through 2015, page two which is the Learning Center in the Visitor Center and then finally, the image behind me is the tower of voices dedicated in september of 2018. In the tower is almost ten stories, 93foot high tower. Has 40 windchimes features and they each weigh 300 pounds driven by the northwestern pennsylvania wind. So being a National Memorial is similar to Oklahoma City in the u. S. S arizona 70 within the National Park service. We stand very proud along with jim and the memorial and of course amy and alice and all of the colleagues in new york and certainly has a Law Enforcement officer myself and the National Park service, 29 years before he came into the superintendent right security and i too have lost dear friends in the line of duty, state troopers and nonfood enforcement who are on that wall as pat mentioned it. And nothing but the utmost respect for what pat and his team do and police week means so much to me and so many again its an honor to be part of this statement thank you and i think for a lot of folks listening and the folks on the panel because you are saying it, the personal and the professional. Its sort of rude in the individual lives and in the larger view that you are taking as well for your work. So thank you for walking both sides of that. Jim. Thank you for allowing me to participate in thank you everyone and i lost my brother dave, at the pentagon on 911, that is essentially how i got involved with the creation of the pentagon memorial. And the fund which is a nonprofit that i now serve as executive director of been very similar to the new york memorial, we worked very closely with the Design Competition were very closely with partners of defense because the Family Members all felt the memorial needed to be there on the ground on the pentagon this was a little bit of a different situation that we were closely with the pentagon and the Design Competition and it started shortly the planning it started shortly after the attack. That was probably a month where the families come together and asked me members. There is an International Design competition, the New York Museum and basically they had designs or ideas and posters that were held in the National Building museum in washington dc and you can imagine it going through room after room of these designs. There were 2000 designs that were submitted it 56 Different Countries around the world and it was really unbelievable to see these designs. So we went through a process on the designs and we selected i think six finalists predict and then we came up with a model in the Concept Design and the jury met again and it was consistent of Family Members myself and another woman who lost her father on the Design Competition committee, former secretaries of defense that were on it, artists and architects from around the world. And around the country to participate in. And Carol Anderson also worked on the core of engineers so it was a very interesting project and process but we basically came up with the design that was submitted by a couple from new york, and essentially a memorial unit for each person that died and was arranged according to the age of the lives of the victims starting with a three yearold little girl, was on flight 77 all of the late up to 71 yearold victim it was also on the flight brady and i described as an individual or collective memorial that tells the story about what happened that day because each memorial unit is arranged according to the age that the victim was more. And we work closely with the department of defense to design and build a memorial dedicated september 2008 with 3 9 11 memorials in this country and i remember talking about what Family Members wanted. They wanted people to remember loved ones and we wanted people to remember what happened and they wanted people to remember that feeling of unity that came through with our country after 9 11 and bringing people together to convert all those who were in such pain so the memorial has stood the test of time very well. Its on the grounds of the pentagon right now and right now and its closed over concerns of covid because theres no way to regulate a memorial so there was concern that groups of visitors could gather together in a tour bus. Its a well visited memorial that over time visitors can come every year when its open threequarters of them schoolkids. Her next focus is to create an Education Center close to the memorial to complement the memorial. Theres a whole generation of children and kids that are growing up that have no memory of 9 11. They dont remember the horror and the audacity of what happened so our focus now is to build a visitor Education Center to help educate this generation growing up with no memory of 9 11 like we all have experienced so appreciate your time and look forward to the discussion. Thank you jim and thanks everyone for helping us see where you are coming from and jumping off point to some of this conversation all of you have mentioned change in a number of ways. And i think sometimes we start to think about memorials and something to create memorials in permanent materials, marble and granite and steel and we think they are just unchanging objects but each if you had talked about in some way the memorial that they are growing and changes in being added to. Do you think over the course or for the life of the memorial so far what are some of the biggest changes in how its used or experienced by visitors . I can go first if thats okay and as usual im not going to answer your question 100 directly but it made me think of something. Yes we used stone and metal and the water in the trees are softer and more organic and more a living breathing part of the memorial and so its interesting that you said memorials are built to be solid and to be unchanging but people change them. We knew that our Family Members and perhaps friends who visited might want to believe flowers or small tokens that we did not anticipate that people would do things like use scotch tape to make sure that their tribute would stay so we had to evolve with ways. Its very important because it was important in my vision that every Visitor Experience it as though it was the first day in this though was their first time with flags from the previous day taken away. It changes as part of memorial. Keep a calm they leave an American Flag and flight attendants leave blanks and people leave notes. People leave memorial cards in addition to flowers in people leave highly personal items. It may be a jerk beach sand was one of the first tributes left left at the memorial be had to scramble a little bit to make sure for whom they were left and make sure to save them with the appropriate contextual information. I think the memorial is the same every day but its new every day and i think the water and in the past few years we could see the trees grow. We were seeing Little Things when we first planted them and they have grown upwards, they have grown outwards and they make a real difference to the life on the plaza. Go ahead amy, im sorry. Thats okay. Just want to say i had the privilege of visiting and i think i first visited flight 93 maybe in 2007 so ive seen it grow and i first heard about the power behind you steve and i have been waiting ever since just to see that trait ive been back several times but not since its been completed and that auditory element was added so i am so looking forward to that opportunity to hear that into visit again. Thank you amy and i can share for those viewing this particular panel, if after the panel you go to and type in tower of voices you can actually view and listen to the tower 24 7 and it was dedicated in 2018 and since then we have had over 3 million views so really a beautiful part of the memorial but something you said triggered me with the brickandmortar element of the Law Enforcement memorial and the incredible majestic beauty of the pentagon and certainly the elements of flight 93 had that element of brickandmortar but another part is often overlooked are the natural elements. When flight 93 plummeted to the year if it landed in an abandoned strip mine so was the very starved landscape in overtime the original design by paul murdoch from los angeles, part of that was 150,000 those of years ago we started reforestation planting trees and these 1215inch seedlings are now 10 to 12 feet high. Its pretty cool and id love to have jim and pat the there will be 132,000, so thats our goal midapril and would like to have the volunteers from the memorial, celebrate that milestone turning that hard landscape into the beauty that we see today so again a vindication from our partners of these great memorials in late april. Maybe join us for a day or two. We would love to. I am definitely coming. I am too on april 9. That is great. I love it. When you spoke about bricks and mortar and someone had asked me how you feel when you walk through, the powerful doing of this wall when they had expand what would that be look like . In washington d. C. Its easier than anywhere else have all the areas that are so pure and important that they wanted to make sure that this memorial look like they grew rather than expanded hourly hourly and away and it would look natural. If it looked unnatural people would be asking more questions and i wouldnt have the feeling and the emotion that we want our visitors to have a net Mutual Understanding where they leave these belongings and personal notes and we want to make sure we dont take that away. Unfortunately as we see over 300 names of post9 11 death because of cancer and 72 onsite and being great that year but the importance of it is that we are evolving because the world has evolved and changed in our adaptation and the people who re