Friday, December 16, 2011

Cornerstone


It's a very handsome piece, dark gray with lighter speckling, three lines of type at the top and the date in the lower right, all carved in a powerfully simple typeface, fittingly called Gotham, and accentuated with silverleaf.


It was with much pomp and PR that the cornerstone for what was then known as the Freedom Tower was dedicated and set in place at the World Trade Center site on July 4th of 2004.  And it sat there while the state and the city argued and dithered for almost two years as the building was re-planned, re-purposed, redesigned, renamed and finally re-sited to the point that it was obvious that this granite cuboid would serve no actual purpose and have no physical part of the structure it was intended for.


So on June 23, 2006, with the building now sited forty feet to its west, the stone was hauled away in order for construction of the underground infrastructure of the WTC to begin.


And the twenty tons of Adirondack granite went east, back to the stoneyard where it was shaped and engraved.  The company, Innovative Stone, didn't feel it was right to keep it in storage, so they landscaped a plaza in front of their building at 130 Motor Parkway in Hauppaugue where the stone was rededicated on September 11, 2009.

December 11, 2011


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