American Veterans Memorial Pier

This 25-foot-high memorial on the Brooklyn waterfront overlooking Lower Manhattan honors the Brooklyn victims of the September 11 terror attacks.  Soon after September 11, 2001, the Brooklyn Remembers committee convened to begin planning for a memorial on the pier to which so many Brooklyn residents gathered after the World Trade Center towers were attacked.  After a juried process, a design by Brooklyn-based artist Robert Ressler called Beacon was selected.  Beacon, a large-scale bronze sculpture shaped like the speaking trumpets once used by volunteer fire departments, also features a spotlight that shines into the night sky.

The speaking trumpet – used during emergencies to call out to crowds and other firefighters – evokes the “moment of crisis during which neighbors, rescue workers and strangers converge to become a community of concern and response,” Ressler explained.  The sculpture was cast at Greenpoint’s Bedi-Makky foundry, the same foundry that produced Washington, D.C.’s Iwo Jima Memorial.  Ressler also designed a granite cobblestone performance space at Socrates Sculpture Park in Queens.

Beacon was dedicated on May 16, 2005.  Situated across the harbor from Lower Manhattan, the monument is Brooklyn’s contribution to September 11 memorials in the area.  Other memorials include Postcards, which frames Lower Manhattan from across the harbor in Staten Island and New Jersey’s official memorial Empty Sky, located in Jersey City at Liberty State Park.