Homeland Security

DATE=5-9-2003

TYPE=Special English Feature

NUMBER=7-28692

TITLE=SPECIAL ENGLISH AMERICAN MOSAIC #921 - World Trade Center Site Memorial Competition

BYLINE=Nancy Steinbach

TELEPHONE=619-2585

DATELINE=Washington

EDITOR=Arditti

CONTENT=

HOST:

Officials in New York City have announced an international competition to design a memorial to honor those who died at the World Trade Center. The memorial is part of a larger plan for the rebuilding of the area. Shep O'Neal has more.

ANNCR:

The seven buildings known as the World Trade Center complex in New York City were built between nineteen-sixty-two and nineteen-seventy-three. The buildings known as the Twin Towers were the tallest in the world at the time they were finished.

On February twenty-sixth, nineteen-ninety-three, a terrorist bomb exploded in the parking area below the World Trade Center. Six people were killed. Thousands were injured. The bomb damaged the buildings but people were able to return to work three weeks later.

On September eleventh, two-thousand-one, hijackers flew two passenger airplanes into the Twin Towers. The attacks caused huge explosions that started fires in the buildings. Pieces fell all over the area. The Twin Towers fell down. Five other buildings in the World Trade Center were also destroyed. Almost three-thousand people were killed.

The international competition to honor those killed is open to anyone over the age of eighteen. The competition will be carried out in two parts. The first designs must be sent to the judging committee by June thirtieth. The judges will select five to further develop their designs. The judges will announce a winner later this year. The fourteen judges on the committee include designer Maya Lin, architecture professor Enrique Norton, and Paula Grant-Berry. Her husband was among those killed.

Officials say they are seeking the most creative designs for the memorial to honor all those who died. Anyone seeking to take part in the competition must register by May twenty-ninth. The cost is twenty-five dollars. To register for the competition, you must use the form found on the Memorial Competition Web site. It provides all the necessary information about the contest and how to send in the design. That address is w-w-w dot w-t-c sitememorial dot o-r-g. Sitememorial is spelled s-i-t-e-m-e-m-o-r-i-a-l. Again, the address is wtcsitememorial -- that's all one word -- dot o-r-g (www.wtcsitememorial.org).