ShareThisWASHINGTON - On first glance, Darrell and Kimberly Lynn's memorial to 9/11 creates the appearance of an enormous American flag stretched tightly between replicas of the World Trade Center's twin towers.
But look again.
Old Glory's red stripes are actually a mosaic of small marble tiles, each bearing the portrait of one of the first responders killed when the towers came crashing down in the horrible hours of Sept. 11, 2001.
Look even closer. Something is missing.
The fallen heroes are not identified by name.
"This is about the faces," said Darrell Lynn, who runs a nonprofit venture, Hero Portraits, in Franklin, Tenn. "We made a conscious decision to leave the names off and make it just about the faces, so people can see these were real people."
The memorial goes on display Sept. 8 in New York City's Central Park, where it will be lit up at night. It will remain on public view in the park through Sept. 11.
Afterward, the memorial will go on tour to six major cities -- the tentative schedule is Baltimore; Tampa, Fla.; Houston; Phoenix; Los Angeles and Chicago -- before coming to Memphis, Tenn., where it will be housed permanently at the Fire Museum of Memphis starting next September.
Lynn got the idea for the memorial a year ago while driving back from New York, where he'd donated a 6-by-4-foot oil painting to the city's "Pride of Midtown" Engine 54 fire station, which lost 15 firefighters when the towers came tumbling down.
The painting -- a composite of the likenesses of all 15 of the lost firefighters -- was so well received that Lynn decided to create a memorial that would pay tribute to all of the first responders killed in the 9/11 attacks.
"After our Engine 54 project, we were so moved we knew we had to do something bigger and never done before, and something that will last forever," Lynn said.
Lynn sent fliers to the families of all 403 first responders killed in the 9/11 attacks and asked them to submit a photo of their fallen hero. The response was immediate, and almost overwhelming.
"Everyone wrote letters and told the stories of their hero and what they were doing that day," Lynn said. "The more we talked to the families, the more it came out that they didn't want their sons' or daughters' faces to be forgotten. Their image was the most important thing."
A group of artists under contract by Lynn used the photos submitted by the families to hand-paint a portrait of each fallen hero. Lynn developed a process to transfer the images onto 4-inch-square Italian marble tiles, and then assembled the tiles in the shape of an American flag.
So far, more than 250 photos have been submitted and painted. More tiles can be added as other photos come in.
The U.S. Engineering Co. designed the structural supports for the memorial's base and 9-foot-tall twin towers at its plant in Loveland, Colo., and then shipped them to Lynn's warehouse in Columbia, Tenn., where the memorial was assembled.
Next week, the monument will be taken apart, packed in crates and shipped to New York, where it will be reassembled in Central Park. FedEx Chairman Fred Smith personally responded to a letter from Lynn and offered to ship the memorial for free.
The total cost of the memorial, including marketing, is around $500,000. The Lynns are paying nearly all of the costs, but have received some donations to help cover expenses.
Lynn said that neither he nor his wife benefits financially from the project. Knowing they are memorializing men and women whose heroism and bravery shone bright during one of the country's darkest hours is itself a reward, Lynn said.
"We think it's better than writing a check," he said.
(Contact reporter Michael Collins of Scripps Howard News Service at collinsm(at)shns.com.)
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, http://www.scrippsnews.com)
