Sept. 11 Tragedy Remembered
With Ceremony, Artistic Memorial
By Robert Goodier
rgoodier@ticotimes.net

The twin shadows of the former World Trade Center now fall on the Parque 11 de setiembre de 2001, in San José's western suburb Sabana Norte, in one of their incarnations since their fall – an artistic replica to honor the memory of those who died on Sept. 11, 2001.

U.S. citizens and Costa Ricans gathered to inaugurate the metal sculpture on Saturday, the third anniversary of the attack in the United States.

Donated by U.S. artist Roland Hockett, the sculpture portrays the two towers made of columns of round copper bars overlaid with jagged metal patches that imply the breaking up of the buildings, and wavy lines emanating from their upper levels.

“There are no complete lines, though it looks like there are. As a design problem, it was a challenge,” Hockett said.

“I didn't want to reward the tragic act,” he explained. “I wanted to focus on something positive. I moved the forms (of the wavy lines) to the top so it's not like an explosion – they're at the top where it looks like the spirits (of the victims) are rising.”

Hockett built the sculpture twice, once in his hometown Panama City, Fla., where he designed it for shipment in 30 parts, and then he broke it down and mailed it to San José. Here, he, his assistant, art student Eric Jones, and a team of workers from the Municipality of San José reconstructed the sculpture in the two weeks before the inauguration.

The memorial is the result of collaboration between the Costa Rican-North American Cultural Center, the Costa Rican-American Chamber of Commerce (AmCham), the American Colony (a group of U.S. residents who live in Costa Rica), the Municipality of San José and the U.S. Embassy.

Hockett donated nearly four months of his time and paid the wages of his assistant, Jones, while the other groups donated money, materials, labor and other services to bring the 1,300-pound sculpture to Costa Rica.

Manuel Arce, director of the Cultural Center, was the impetus behind the sculpture, coordinating among the various donors and arranging the details of the project from Costa Rica.

The inauguration brought U.S. citizens here together to reflect on the tragedy and on Costa Rica's three-year long show of support for the United States.

“It's hard to express how much it means to Americans when other countries come together to express their solidarity,” said Elaine Samson, spokeswoman for the U.S. Embassy in San José.

Lynda Solar, executive director of AmCham and dual U.S.-Costa Rican citizen, remembered San José's reaction to the attack. At first there was disbelief, she said, and then “a tremendous outpouring of grief from the citizens of Costa Rica (expressing) solidarity with the U.S. citizens living here.”

She said she went to a mass at the Metropolitan Cathedral in San José that was “overflowing with Costa Ricans. People would come up to me, crying as if I had lost a brother or a mother.”

It was hard to be away from the United States during the aftermath, she said.

“You seek solace from your countrymen in a time like that. You want to share the grief with fellow Americans. You feel a kind of impotency being here, when you want to be in your country taking part in the grief,” she said.

Solar said she is moved by Hockett's generosity in donating the sculpture.

San José Mayor Johnny Araya, whose municipality is one of the memorial's donors, said, “It's an expression of Costa Rica's and San José's solidarity with the United States, and at the same time it's our condemnation of terrorism.”

He pointed to the recent tragedy at a school in Russia and the bombing of the train in Madrid, saying the events “obligate all of us in the world who believe in peace and democracy to maintain a militant position (against terrorism). Though we're a small country we will protect human rights,” he said.

He said he feels a sense of solidarity with the United States and the survivors of the World Trade Center attack, while at the same time supporting the recent ruling by the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court (Sala IV) against the decision of President Abel Pacheco's administration to include Costa Rica on the list of countries that support the war in Iraq (TT, Sept. 10).

“Costa Rica shouldn't have been involved in that coalition. Though we don't participate directly in the war, the fact that we support it contradicts all the best traditions and values of Costa Rica and its people,” Araya said.