Jury begins selection process for design of Worcester firefighters memorial
July 6, 2004
Contact:
Link McKie
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l.mckie@neu.edu
WORCESTER, Mass. -- A blue-ribbon jury is meeting here this week for deliberations that will lead to selection of a final design for the planned memorial for the six Worcester firefighters who died during a warehouse fire in 1999.
The 11-member jury will meet Thursday, July 8, and Friday, July 9, at Worcester Polytechnic Institute to decide the five winners of the first stage of a two-stage national design competition. The jury will choose from among the 160 entries submitted for the Worcester firefighters memorial.
The names of the five winners will be announced at a press conference Monday, July 12.
The five first-stage winners will vie to design the memorial and the memorial park that will surround it. The winner of the second and final stage of the national design competition will be selected by the jury Sept. 24 and announced publicly Sept. 27.
The $3-million to $5-million memorial and memorial park, to be financed through a public fund-raising campaign, will be built on a scenic site next to Worcester Fire Department headquarters off Grove Street on Salisbury Pond across from Institute Park.
The jury will review the 160 entries both days, before voting on the five finalists Friday, July 9.
The public is invited to view the design entries from 6 to 9 p.m. Thursday, July 8, in Alden Memorial Hall at WPI, 100 Institute Road.
The 160 entries that will be on display are competing in two stages for a first prize of $30,000 and the opportunity to continue to develop the memorial concept.
The jury will select this week the five finalists for the second stage of the competition, and then, in September, the winner of the second stage.
In September, the first-place winner of the second stage of the competition will be awarded $30,000 and the opportunity to continue with development of the memorial. The second-place finisher will receive $8,000; third place, $5,000; and fourth and fifth place, $1,000 each plus commendations for design excellence.
Members of the competition jury are:
- Denis Leary, the Worcester-bred comedian, actor and producer, and president of The Leary Firefighters Foundation.
- Cheryl Barton, principal of The Office of Cheryl Barton in San Francisco, which specializes in landscape architecture and urban design.
- Wellington Reiter, dean of the College of Architecture and Environmental Design at Arizona State University.
- Charles W. Harris, professor emeritus at Harvard University's Graduate School of Design.
- Andrés T. Rojas, president of Rojas Group Inc. of Boston, specialists in architecture, landscape architecture, interior design, and planning.
- Cameron B. Roberts, director of development for KV Associates Inc. of Boston.
- Gerard A. Dio, chief of the Worcester Fire Department.
- Robert B. McCarthy, president of the Professional Fire Fighters of Massachusetts, representing more than 12,000 paid professional union firefighters.
- Robert A. DiPoli, fire chief in Needham, and second vice president of the International Association of Fire Chiefs.
- Ellen S. Dunlap, president of the American Antiquarian Society in Worcester.
- Robert Moylan Jr., commissioner of the Worcester Department of Public Works.
The Worcester Fire Fighters Memorial Committee sought design entries nationwide this past spring.
The Worcester Fire Fighters Memorial Committee began working in late 2001 to establish a memorial to honor Firefighters Paul A. Brotherton, Timothy P. Jackson, Jeremiah M. Lucey, James F. "Jay" Lyons III, Joseph T. McGuirk and Lt. Thomas E. Spencer. They died Dec. 3, 1999, trying to save the lives of others in an abandoned warehouse off Route 290 near downtown Worcester. Their deaths were the worst loss of firefighters' lives in more than 20 years in a building fire in America, and the third worst fire in Massachusetts' history.
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Last modified: Aug 12, 2004, 13:45 EDT