A revised design for the World Trade Center memorial accommodates many of the wishes of organizations representing surviving families of first responders.

Most importantly, much of the bedrock of the towers where a majority of victims' remains were found will be preserved as sacred ground. Changes to Michael Arad's “Reflecting Absence” design, in which reflecting pools will fill the footprints of the two towers, include an underground room where visitors will be able to see the twisted beams, a crushed fire truck and other artifacts from Sept. 11, 2001. A ramp leading down into the museum also will pass by exposed parts of the slurry wall, the last remnant of the tower complex.

Victims' names will be displayed randomly around the two reflecting pools, a visual metaphor for the “haphazard brutality of the attacks,” Arad said, but rescue workers will be singled out with an insignia beside their names.

After months of lobbying, collecting signatures and circulating petitions, Lee Ielpi of the 9-11 Widows, Victims and Families Association, is relieved.

The victims' families were able to prevail against many powerful, wealthy and influential people who wanted to build on what the families wished to preserve as hallowed ground, said Ielpi. “We stopped them from putting a bus terminal in there; we stopped them from putting a ramp in there. We stopped them. And that was some major victory.”

Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly and Fire Commissioner Nicholas Scoppetta were said to be satisfied with the tribute as well.

There are still details regarding the memorial that Ielpi's group and the Coalition of 9-11 Families hope to influence before it becomes complete. For example, Ielpi suggests that rather than having firefighters' names interspersed randomly around the memorial with an insignia, the names of groups who died in the tragedy, such as his son's Squad 288, be displayed together.

“Instead of 343 names, what if my son's Squad 288 was listed as Squad 288 with eight names, the lieutenant and the firefighters, and you place it over here in this corner, and then Rescue Company 2, where I worked, with all their names and you placed it over there,” Ielpi suggested.

“They came together, they went off together and they died together. I think that would be a fitting way to represent the firemen who died there.”

FIRECHIEF.COM

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