A Look at the 9/11 Memorials Registry

The 9/11 Memorial Museum provides a variety of online registries that serve as historical records of survival, recovery and commemoration. The Memorials Registry serves as a digital record of 9/11 memorials throughout the world. Memorial profiles are added by users and highlight memorials that range from planted trees and sculptures to street signs and murals or monuments that incorporate recovered World Trade Center steel.

The registry also draws parallels to other content on view in the 9/11 Memorial Museum. A profile for a memorial in Chester A. Reese Veterans Memorial Park in Malverne, New York was recently added to the registry in honor of 9/11 victims Scott D. Bart, Jacqueline Donovan, James A. Haran, and Diane Marie Urban. This memorial features a piece of World Trade Center steel, suspended within a rectangular stone wall, as well as a commemorative bronze plaque and four benches, each dedicated to one of the town’s four victims.

Meanwhile, within Foundation Hall, a memorial card for one of the Malverne victims, Diane Urban, is situated on the Last Column―the last piece of Twin Tower steel to be removed from ground zero, symbolically signifying the end of the recovery period. In 2002, Urban’s sister, Theresa Corio, brought this memorial card to ground zero, where recovery worker Bobby Gray adhered it to the Last Column in tribute. While the Malverne memorial relates Urban to her home, the memorial card and its placement on the Last Column connect her to the story of the World Trade Center site.

The Last Column and the Chester A. Reese Veterans Memorial Park demonstrate just two of the meaningful ways victims have been commemorated in the aftermath of the attacks. The Memorials Registry is intended to continuously connect 9/11 victims to their family, friends, and communities, and ultimately to attest to the unwavering commitment, across the country and the world, to never forget.

By Lisa Barrier, 9/11 Memorial Exhibition Research Assistant