Sandy Hook Memorial Commission Selects Design

NEWTOWN - Members of the Sandy Hook Permanent Memorial Commission will be formally recommending the design entitled “The Clearing” to Newtown’s Board of Selectmen on Thursday, The News Times has reported.

Last September, the commission began accepting designs for the town's permanent memorial to the 20 students and six educators killed during the Sandy Hook Elementary School mass shooting in 2012. They received 188 submissions before narrowing narrowing the choices to four. The winning designer is SWA, a San Francisco-based firm.

The design narrative for "The Clearing" reads in part: "The center of the fountain is planted with a young sycamore, in remembrance of the young age at which many the victims were taken from us. American sycamores are durable, long lived, and fast growing trees. The mottled white bark represents the innocence of the victims."

It will fall to the Board of Selectmen to bid the project and oversee its construction. The plan calls for dedicating the memorial on Dec. 14, 2019, the seventh anniversary of the shooting.

Photo via Newtown Website.