February 16, 2011
By Staff Reporter
By Stephen McKinley
The Irish hunger memorial in lower Manhattan, scheduled for completion by March 17, will not be ready until early summer, according to the memorial’s artist, Brian Tolle.
Tolle said that the work was significantly delayed because of the Sept. 11 attacks. The site of the memorial is only one block from where the World Trade Center’s north tower stood.
On the morning of Sept. 11, Tolle was at the site, making ready with his team for the planting of seeds, grass and plants, which have been brought over from Ireland, along with a ruined cottage that dates back to the Irish famine of the 1840s.
The memorial will represent a gently sloping Irish field, made with Irish soil and plants, as well as the ruined cottage. Signifying the manner in which the Famine tore the Irish away from their land, and replanted them in the United States, the unique memorial is about half an acre in size and will have a permanent walk-in exhibition in its base. Ground was broken for the memorial on March 16, 2001 by Irish and Irish-American dignataries, including Gov. George Pataki and Sinn Fein chief negotiator and Northern Irish Minister for Education Martin McGuinness.
As Tolle and his team got to work on the 11th, they saw the first plane smash into the north tower before they fled. He later gave a dramatic eyewitness account of the attacks to the Echo. Falling debris coated the memorial and the stones of the cottage, but once uncovered, it was found to be undamaged.
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Tolle explained that part of the delay was because the planting season was missed due to Sept. 11. Asked how he felt that his memorial to a very old tragedy would now sit close to a memorial for the events of Sept. 11, Tolle said that as it was 150 years since the Irish Famine, it could take as long for New York to come to terms with its disaster.
“It’s much to early to discuss that,” he said.