A TEAR DROP FROM RUSSIA

Ask any adult what they were doing on September 11, 2001 and you will likely receive a prompt reply filled with vivid details. Unlike most other days on our journey from the cradle to the grave, 9/11 is remembered because of its impact on our lives, the future of our country, and the security of the world. It is a life defining day ranking right up there with the day we heard Neil Armstrong say from the surface of the moon, "That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind." It is as life altering as the bullet fired from the sixth floor window of the Texas School Book Depository in Dallas on November 22, 1963. Just like all life defining events, 9/11 has its share of monuments and memorials that will convey the significance of that horrendous day to generations yet to be born.

One of the more controversial of all the 9/11 memorials is an artwork originally entitled "Tear Of Grief", a forty-foot stainless steel teardrop suspended within a 100-foot-tall, 175-ton, bronze-clad tower that is now officially entitled "To the Struggle Against World Terrorism". This extraordinary work is a gift to the United States from the people of Russia and from its creator, renowned sculptor Zurab Tsereteli. Mr. Tsereteli first envisioned the image of the "Tear Of Grief" on September 11, 2001 after watching the horrific collapse of the World Trade Center towers on Moscow television and then driving past a crowd of crying Muscovites in front of the US embassy nearby. He began the design of the "Tear Drop Memorial" on that very day.

Zurab Tsereteli is 70 years old and the energetic president of the Russian Academy of Arts. He has been at the center of Russian and Soviet art for decades. His artistic ingenuity has made him world famous and his works are frequently a vortex of criticism even in his own country. He has won international acclaim for his sculpture of St. George at the United Nations that he created from scrapped American and Soviet missiles. In contrast, there have also been threats to wire explosives to his 165-foot sculpture of Peter the Great in downtown Moscow.

It is, therefore, not surprising that among the 9/11 memorials, his would be engulfed in a firestorm of controversy. Because of the support of Jersey City Mayor Glenn Cunningham, the ‘Tear Of Grief" monument committee was able to bypass many of the usual review requirements. The murmurs of opposition grew into an uproar, however, when the popular mayor died in May 2004. Opponents and neighborhood groups were quick to mount an aggressive campaign against the memorial. Residents, art groups, and civic associations joined together to derail the project. Local cultural arts groups condemned the sculpture as ''an insensitive, self-aggrandizing piece of pompousness by one of the world's blatant self-promoters.'' But Guy Catrillo, former co-chairman of the 9-11 committee, may have turned the tide by suggesting that the "Tear Of Grief" should not be considered a 9/11 monument but, rather, a statement about world terrorism. The official title was revised ''To the Struggle Against World Terrorism" and the project regained momentum.

In September 2005, Russian President Vladimir Putin was present in Bayonne, New Jersey, for the groundbreaking that launched the one-year construction project. The entire structure was designed and built in Russia, transported in pieces to the US, and assembled in Harbor View Park on the Peninsula at Bayonne Harbor. This beautiful two-acre public park sits on the New Jersey shore within view of the World Trade Center site and the Statue of Liberty. The completed sculpture was dedicated on 9/11/2006 in a ceremony attended by President Bill Clinton, Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff, Governor Jon Corzine, Senator Frank Lautenberg, Senator Robert Menendez and family members of World Trade Center victims. Grammy award winner Leann Rimes was on hand to sing the National Anthem.

On the 11-sided granite base of the sculpture there are 3,024 names of persons killed on September 11^th in New York, Washington, and Pennsylvania along with six others who died in the World Trade Center bombing in 1993. The artist, however, used an outdated list and failed to remove the names of 43 people who were deleted from the official record between October 2003 and January 2004 because their deaths, and in some cases their existence, was not proven. As a result, criticism and controversy continued to swirl around this ten-story sculpture on the shores of New York Harbor.

Within the international arena of one-upmanship, the Russian gift of the ‘Tear Of Grief" has captured a New York Harbor distinction that was long held by the French. Visitors sailing into New York Harbor will now see Russia’s "Tear Drop Memorial" off the port side before they pass France’s gift to the USA standing proudly with her torch held high on Liberty Island. This is, however, a petty distinction. Beside rising above the controversy and the din of opposition, there is another more significant aspect to this sculpture. It stands today within sight of the World Trade Center as an expression of grief and empathy from the citizens of a country formerly our enemy.