The Story Behind Oak Lawn's 9/11 First Responder Memorial

OAK LAWN, IL — In the days immediately following the tragic events of Sept. 11, 2001, Oak Lawn police officers and firefighters traveled to assist the beleaguered New York City first responders where 343 firefighters and 72 police officers died responding to the World Trade Center attacks.

Nine years later, some of those same Oak Lawn first responders went to New York to escort four beams from the fallen towers back to Oak Lawn. For those unfamiliar or to young to remember the installation of the 9/11 memorial in front of the train station, here is a timeline:

• Before we get started, there are over 1,000 memorials incorporating artifacts from the WTC twin towers. Oak Lawn’s memorial with its two 22-foot tall abstract bronze stellae incorporating steel beams from the World Trade Center, made Smithsonian Magazine’s “Seven 9/11 Memorials to Visit Across the United States.”
• Four WTC beams arrived in Oak Lawn on a flatbed truck Dec. 17, 2010. The beams were escorted by four Oak Lawn first responders who had volunteered to assist in the aftermath in New York City. Prior to that, Ground Zero debris was being held as crime scene evidence by the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey, which owned the trade center. The port authority was granted permission by the courts to make pieces of the wreckage available to communities for 9/11 memorials nationwide.
• Prior to the beams’ arrival, the Oak Lawn Village Board entered into an agreement with the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey to bring remnants of the World Trade Center to the village.
• Former OLPD coordinator of emergency communications Lt. Art Clark was the inspiration behind building a first responders memorial. Clark first learned of the port authority releasing pieces of the World Trade Center for 9/11 memorials in a trade magazine. After the beams arrived in Oak Lawn, Clark, a colonel in the Marine Reserves, left for his fourth deployment to Afghanistan.
• Footing the costs for transporting the beams from New York and New Jersey were the Oak Lawn Police and Fire Clubs, and the International Union of Operation Engineers Local 150.
• In honor of its 50th anniversary, the Oak Lawn Rotary Club raised the remainder of funds for the installation by dropping 2,000 golf balls during the Oak Lawn Chamber golf outing from a helicopter on Stony Creek Golf Course. The Rotary sold so many golf balls that the helicopter had to go up twice. Residents purchased golf balls for a chance to win cash prizes.
• Renowned sculptor Erik Blome, whose works dot the North American landscape —including the larger-than-life-sized bronze bust of Jean-Baptiste Pointe DuSable on Michigan Avenue – was hired to create the memorial with the help of students from the Academy of Art University in San Francisco.
• The actual name of the memorial is “Heralds of 9/11.” The memorial features four WTC beams – two freestanding beams and two attached to original spires created by Blome.
• 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.
• The police officer’s face on the monument is Japanese, honoring the nationality of the architect—Minoru Yamasaki—who designed the Persian Byzantine influenced World Trade Center.
• Some Oak Lawn residents’ faces are also embedded in the obelisks, including Sylvia Cisneros. The likeness of Megan Hurkes, the daughter of former Oak Lawn Tr. Jerry Hurkes, who was 10 when she died in a 2009 ATV accident, is embedded in the angel’s wing, or “Herald of 9/11.” The face of Blome’s wife also appears in the sculpture.
• Local welders also volunteered their services, including Ed Heil, a 41-year member of Chicago Pipefitters Local 597. Heil told Patch in 2011 that working with the WTC steel was almost a spiritual experience. He thought a lot about his brother pipefitters—those who built the Twin Towers and those who picked up the pieces and put them on trucks as crime evidence. “I just wanted them guys to know they had a brother pipefitter to meet them on the other end.”
• The spires were cast at a foundry in Lawrence, KS.
• ‘Heralds of 9/11’ was dedicated Sunday, Sept. 11, 2011, on the tenth anniversary of the attacks. Blackhawks National Anthem singer Jim Cornelison sang a stirring rendition of “The Star Spangled Banner.” Then-Congressman Dan Lipinski pulled off the black shrouds veiling the bronze spires and one of the twisted beams from the World Trade Center. The installation was completed in November 2011
• Blome and the other volunteers felt guided by the spirit of Father Mychal Judge, the New York City firefighters’ chaplain who was the World Trade Center disaster’s first recorded casualty.
• “The process of bringing metal together has a unique magic about it that artists like me see as a metaphor for life,” artist Blome said at the dedication. “As you push forward, things have a way of coming together, of working in harmony as a unity even if you feel they aren’t as you go. You have to have faith and keep your eye right on the line, like a welder. That’s how I feel about this project and my experience in Oak Lawn.”

As elected officials and residents have done since the first responders memorial was dedicated in 2011, all residents are invited to gather by the 9/11 memorial on Tuesday, Sept. 11. The ceremony, hosted by the Johnson-Phelps VFW Post 5220, at Oak Lawn-Patriot Station, 9525 Tulley Ave, Oak Lawn.