Committee seeks rights to site for memorial to six Worcester firefighters
September 29, 2003
Contact:
Link McKie
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l.mckie@neu.edu
WORCESTER, Mass. --The committee overseeing creation of a memorial to the six Worcester firefighters who died battling a warehouse fire here four years ago is seeking rights from the city to use the site chosen for a memorial to the firefighters.
The Worcester Fire Fighters Memorial Committee is asking the city to turn over use of the site to locate and build the memorial there. The committee also seeks to have the site revert to the city once the memorial is built.
The site contains almost seven acres next to Fire Department headquarters off Grove Street and on scenic Salisbury Pond in Institute Park.
City Manager Thomas Hoover recommended to the City Council in August that it approve the memorial committee's proposal. The council's Youth, Parks and Recreation Committee is scheduled to hear the proposal at a meeting Monday, Sept. 29, in the council chamber.
Obtaining rights to the site will give the committee the go-ahead to begin taking the important next steps in creating the memorial. The steps include:
- Seeking proposals for the first stage of a two-stage design competition that will determine what the memorial will look like and how it will fit into the site.
- Mounting a fund-raising campaign to finance the memorial and to create an endowment that will pay for its maintenance and possibly for educational adjuncts to the memorial after it is built.
- Ensuring that the public is kept informed about progress toward building the memorial, and that public opinion is solicited during the design competition.
"The committee has already taken significant strides toward the memorial to honor our fallen heroes," Michael J. Donoghue, chairman of the Worcester Fire Fighters Memorial Committee, said. "Having the rights to the site will enable us to put our efforts into high gear to secure a design for the memorial and to see it built."
Since announcing in October 2002 the selection of the memorial site off Grove Street, the committee has formally named the site as "Worcester Fire Fighters Memorial Park 5-1438, December 3, 1999." The numbers stand for the five alarms and the Fire Department code for the location of the Worcester Cold Storage and Warehouse Co. fire. Six Worcester firefighters died during rescue operations the evening of December 3, 1999, in a fire in the building, off Route 290 near downtown Worcester. Their deaths marked 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.
The Worcester Fire Fighters Memorial Committee began working in late 2001 on development of the 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. Their deaths were mourned in Worcester and throughout the nation. A memorial service six days after their deaths was attended by 30,000 firefighters and 10,000 civilians in what was believed to have been the largest such service for firefighters killed on duty. Those attending included firefighters from across the country and from other countries and scores of prominent officials, including President Bill Clinton and Vice President Al Gore.
The committee was established to select the site of the memorial; to establish a process for community participation and awareness in the design and development of the memorial; and to raise money for the memorial's construction and maintenance.
Also since selection of the Grove Street site the committee has voted to adopt a two-stage open national competition to determine the final design for the memorial. Proposals will be sought soon from architects, landscape architects, urban designers and environmental artists from throughout the United States. A jury of nationally known designers and local community representatives will choose the winning design from among finalists chosen after the first stage of the competition. The public will have an opportunity to review and comment on the finalists' choices before the second stage of the competition gets under way to award the design contract.
The committee already has set as guidelines for the design that the memorial include a monument to the six firefighters; a bridge connecting the memorial site to Institute Park across Salisbury Pond; a chronology of the tragic fire and its aftermath; and tributes to others who fought the fire and to other Worcester firefighters who die in the line of duty.
The committee also has adopted a mission statement toward its goal of creating the memorial, with the theme "A Time to Honor Our Own."
The committee will soon announce its formal campaign to raise money for the memorial and its maintenance.
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Last modified: Aug 12, 2004, 11:40 EDT