FDNY 9/11 Memorial Wall

This permanent monument honors the 343 firefighters on the FDNY’s active duty roll who were killed during the terrorist attack and subsequent collapse of the World Trade Center buildings on September 11, 2001. Only Liberty Street separated Ten House from the World Trade Center Plaza. Due to its location, the firehouse was heavily damaged.

The monument is a 6-foot-high, 56-foot-long bas-relief consisting of 14 panels. It is cast in 8,000 pounds of bronze, one of the largest bronze bas-reliefs in the United States. This project was the collaborative effort of a dedicated team that raised funds and created the sensitive sculpture, which fuses emotion and design. The lower section of the memorial lists all the active members of the FDNY by rank who fell that day, and includes a timeline of the events and recovery efforts.

According to the FDNY, the purpose of the classical-realist composition was to depict every group of people, type of vehicle and apparatus that responded to the crisis that day. Rambusch managed the entire project, producing the conceptual design and scale models used in its development. Illustrator Joseph Oddi, a member of the Rambusch team, and sculptor Joseph Petrovics created and refined the depiction, while Rambusch supervised the casting process carried out by the Bedi-Makki Art Foundry, and the final installation.

Rambusch also created weatherproof wall-washing luminaires to graze the front surface of the sculpture. These nine 4-foot-long, hand-made picture lights reinforce the warmth of the burnished bronze, reveal the sculpted metal and highlight its focal points. A programmed dimming system manufactured by Lutron Electronics allows the cherished memorial to be bathed in light around the clock.