9/11 First Responders Monument Taking Shape

Arriving at the public works garage with sons Maxwell, 13, and Noah, 8, from his studio up north, sculptor Erik Blome knows there is no easy way from Crystal Lake to Oak Lawn.

“I didn’t want them at home watching television,” Blome says, releasing the overhead door and letting sunlight pour into the garage on his work in progress.

Blome is racing to finish “Heralds of 9/11” in time for its dedication next month on the 10th anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the United States.

“I’ve been working really hard on it,” he says. “I’m there at the studio in Crystal Lake every day, and weekends too.”

The first spire is finished and already has been shipped to a foundry in Lawrence, Kan., for casting. Work on the second spire is dragging.

“When I started, there wasn’t much time,” Blome says. “Generally it takes six to eight weeks to cast something large like this. If you go backwards from 9/11, we’re there now. I asked (the foundry) to rush and set things aside so we can get Oak Lawn’s project done.”

The second spire, still in clay form, stands on the floor where snowplows are normally parked, wrapped in plastic sheets. To the side are beams from the World Trade Center.

“I’m glad to be doing this here,” Blome says. “Little kids, people from the neighborhood stop by to watch the sculpting. They’re amazed that there are beams are here.”

Embedded into the obelisks are likenesses of hands and faces of people: police officers, fire fighters, and civilians who came to the aid of strangers.

Some Oak Lawn residents have posed for Blome this summer, their faces immortalized on a piece that will stand for generations. The police officer’s face on the monument is Japanese, honoring the nationality of the architect—Minoru Yamasaki—who designed the World Trade Center.

“The World Trade Center had kind of Persian Byzantine look,” Blome says. “The architect was criticized for designing a building with a very Eastern influence. It wasn’t a very American-looking building.”

Intricate patterning on the second spire’s lower section mirrors the patterning of the World Trade Center.

“I took these images from when they were actually building it,” Blome says. “It’s a memorial to the building, too. In addition to the loss of life, there was this loss of a colossal building.”

Blome is in the final stages of completing the sculpting. This past weekend, he was pouring bronze on some of the sections.

Many U.S. communities have built their own 9/11 tributes using pieces of the fallen World Trade Center, but Oak Lawn’s will be the first in the Southland. While the deadline is tight, Blome is optimistic that most of it will be finished in time for the dedication next month.

“We’ll have one spire done,” he laughs.

Follow the progress of “Heralds of 9/11” on Monumental Oak Lawn.

Correction: Patch misidentified elements of the second tier in two of its photos. The face already in the tier was modeled after Erik Blume's wife; the model for the face that still needs to be cast was an Oak Lawn woman. Captions have been corrected.