9/11 memorial in Jersey City frames view of the empty sky above twin towers site

JERSEY CITY, N.J. - It is a symbiotic relationship - separated by a river, connected by an economy, and linked forever by the morning of Sept. 11, 2001.

New Jersey sends many of its residents into New York each day for work, but about 700 of those people did not return home that day. In a memorial to be unveiled Saturday for the 10th anniversary of the attacks, that tragic but enduring relationship between New York and New Jersey is presented on two stark steel walls.

Called "Empty Sky," the memorial is built on a berm on the edge of the Hudson River at Liberty State Park. As tourists and mourners walk between the paneled walls toward the water, passing the names of 746 New Jersey victims etched in four-inch lettering, they will come face-to-face with the empty sky where the twin towers once stood as part of an exceptional view of Lower Manhattan.

But the view provides a dose of hope, if one allows it, because the walls - whose 208-foot length matches the width of each tower - point in the direction of cranes rebuilding the World Trade Center site.

Gov. Christie, whose connection to Sept. 11 mirrors that of so many other New Jerseyans, will speak to thousands of invited guests at the dedication of the memorial. Christie's wife, Mary Pat, and his brother, Todd, were working in Lower Manhattan when the towers came down, and had no communication with each other for hours.

"I was sitting at home with an 8-year-old son and a 5-year-old daughter and a 14-month-old son, contemplating for five or six hours what it might be like to be a single parent," Christie said last week. "That tends to clarify things in your life."

When he picked up his wife later that day, she was wrapped in a blanket, having been hosed down for contaminants when she got back to New Jersey.

Like so many New Jerseyans, the Christies knew people killed, including the father of a friend of their son.

And like so many New Jerseyans, his professional life was upended. It had been announced on Sept. 10 that he was President George W. Bush's pick for U.S. attorney, putting him on the national stage. The nomination would be delayed for months.

"It's really important for all Americans, but especially New Jerseyans, to take some time to really reflect and thank God for their blessings, and pray for the lost souls and the families who survived," Christie said. "If we do that, I think we'll be doing something that's really good and needed for the people who made that sacrifice."

In another parallel with New York, the construction of the Jersey City memorial was delayed by various factors, including an escalation in the price of steel, and legal action from citizens' groups concerned about the lack of public input and obstructed views of Lower Manhattan. Likewise, there have been years of legal and political wrangling over the memorial at ground zero.

The resulting "Empty Sky" project, built on land set aside in October 2001, cost $12 million in funds from the state and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. It is built next to the 19th-century Central Railroad of New Jersey terminal that in the days after the tragedy housed the family assistance center for relatives of victims.

Outside the walls are two beams rescued from the towers, leaning against one another. They sit near digital kiosks where visitors can locate names on the memorial.

Names are grouped randomly on the memorial walls, although family members are listed together.

There is room on the panels, which are constructed of marine-grade stainless steel, for additional names if more New Jerseyans are identified, Rick Cahill, the chairman of the New Jersey 9/11 Memorial Foundation.

Cahill said that 696 victims from New Jersey were identified and that 50 others - such as a New Jersey man who had recently moved to the SoHo section of New York City - had strong enough connections to be included.

"It changes from moment to moment, depending on how the sun hits those stainless-steel panels," Cahill said of the memorial. "It really makes you feel, when you are inside the memorial, that it is alive."

This is what the design by co-architects Jessica Jamroz and Frederic Schwartz - selected from 350 submissions - was intended to do.

Jamroz, too, spoke of the intensity of the sight of sunlight against the 30-foot-high walls, set 16 feet apart. She showed how, at certain moments, the sun's reflection creates something of a halo between the walls.

Jamroz, who also helped design the 9/11 memorial of Westchester County, N.Y., said "Empty Sky" becomes a "chamber of reflection," and "honors the memory of those lost by simply and powerfully connecting the New Jersey community back to Lower Manhattan."

The state's homeland security director, Charles McKenna, led a tour of the memorial Wednesday.

"The scars suffered by the families of the victims still run incredibly deep," McKenna said. "There are graduations unattended, there are children who will never know their grandparents, and there are brides who walk down aisles without their fathers."