HEARTS AND HANDS COMPLEX

[DMCKEON]

HEARTS AND HANDS COMPLEX

You walk into the entrance of the Memorial and you are greeted by friendly volunteers from our local High Schools or Colleges or maybe by a senior citizen who is volunteering that day.



The entrance facility will have some portraits or personal reminders that have been created since 9/11.



Maybe the Flag of Honor or Scott LoBaido’s “Americans”.



Each time you come you will probably see something different as these will be rotating displays.



If you like you can make an appointment to record a personal memory about a family member or a friend.



You could also sign up to be a volunteer or a contributor to some of the numerous educational programs that are being developed.



Or you can either proceed to your left to view the United in Memory 9/11 Victims Memorial Quilt or you could proceed to the right into the Corridor of Memories



If you go to the left you will enter a single exhibition hall with over 10,000 square feet of open floor space and will be able to walk through aisles displaying the United in Memory 9/11 Victims Memorial Quilt.







142 10 ½ by 10 ½ panels each containing 25 quilt patches memorializing one of the victims of 9/11.



These patches were made by people from all over the world and there is at least one patch representing every victim.



You will be able to feel the love that went into this very personal memorial



Family members will also be able to add items to the patches.



Visitors will also be able to tie knots into panels that are under repair.



Anyone will also be able to leave a personal recording of their experience or listen to personal memories of those who have gone before them.



If upon entering the memorial you go to your right you will enter our corridor of memories.



The corridor is over 250 feet in length and nearly 3,000 square feet of floor space.



On the walls of the corridor will be photos of all of the victims of the attacks.



The photos will be arranged in alphabetical order by affiliation.



The affiliations will also be arranged in alphabetical order to ensure that visitors can easily find their loved ones photo.



Under each photo will be the name, rank if required, age and location of the victim on 9/11.



The roof of the corridor will be arched Plexiglas onto which will be etched the names of all of the victims in a totally random fashion.



We hope to enable visitors to look up into the sky and feel that their loved ones are watching over them still.



The corridor continues in a circular direction and leads visitors into another corridor that leads back into the United in Memory 9/11 Victims Memorial Quilt Exhibition Hall.



The corridors and Exhibition Hall will totally enclose a 21,000 Square Foot Memorial Garden.



The garden will consist of floral arrangements and outdoor monuments and provide a place for peaceful meditation and contemplation.



Surrounding the garden on the exterior walls of the corridors will be glass enclosed viewing areas so that visitors will se able to experience the garden even in bad weather.



There will also be a chapel a connected to the corridor for anyone who would like to say a prayer.



This Memorial will not be at Ground Zero but a short distance away on Staten Island.


Close enough to Ground Zero but far enough away from the hustle and bustle of downtown Manhattan.



The Memorial complex will be nearly 1,000 feet from any major road.



It will not be a tourist attraction but rather a compliment to the WTC Memorial at Ground Zero.



A place where anyone but in particular family members will be able to go to quietly reflect and remember their loved ones.



It will also be a place to remember how everyone came together after 9/11 to support the families of those who were lost.



We will be reaching out to all family groups for input.



We will also be reaching out to individual family members for their ideas as well.



We want your input we need your input to make this work.



This is Phase I of our Hearts and Hands Complex.



Additional phases will hopefully include:



9/11 Family Museum



Public Library



Veterans Center



Senior/Youth Center.



We hope to fill the void left in our world, by the passing of our loved ones, we are taking a positive, proactive approach - instilling goodness and decency in our world so that all who were lost will always be our beams of light towards a better tomorrow.



COMMUNITY PROGRAMS



After 9/11 America came together in a way never seen before. People reached out to families in need from all over the country. We hope to recapture that feeling of community through our Hearts and Hands Complex.



We hope to expand and improve the quality and quantity of community service not only for the 9/11 victims but for all in need particularly those of low and moderate income.



Through our Crisis Relief Network we currently link over 800 support organizations to one website www.where-to-turn.org. The Hearts and Hands Complex will provide a facility where people without computer access will be able to speak to counselors and project managers who will help them find the services and support they seek.



The complex will also employ two new innovative initiatives that will provide services to an even larger population.



Our mobile computer lab will not only serve the complex as a recording studio for visitors to leave personal memories but will also be used to make available computer access to students in lower income neighborhoods.



The lab which will consist of twenty wireless computer stations will be mobile and provide various neighborhoods throughout Staten Island hours of after school computer access to students.



During school hours the lab will visit senior centers and also act as an employment outreach center providing internet access to assist those with their job searches.



The Complex will also attempt to establish the first volunteer/health program initiative.



A major problem facing recent retirees is the fact most companies are no longer providing health coverage.



Our plan is to coordinate a program where recent retirees will volunteer their time and expertise to those in need.



Instead of being paid the volunteers will be offered health coverage either free of charge or at a discount.



If we are successful we will be able to expand this to other areas and as we enroll more participants the group rate will improve enabling us to provide additional coverage.



Bringing this expertise and computer access will bring benefits to those in need which are essential for sound community development and for the development of viable urban communities.





RESTORATION: SEAVIEW CAMPUS



The real ghosts are architectural. Staten Island, an almost-60-square-mile borough of New York City that Henry David Thoreau once called "a little piece of country in the city," is home to a collection of once-glorious, now forgotten buildings that make up the campus of Sea View Hospital. Sea View's 24 city-owned buildings,

nine of which are still used, are rapidly decaying, victims of "demolition by neglect."



Designed by New York City architect Raymond F. Almirall and built between 1905 and 1938, Sea View once was the largest and most expensive city-owned heath-care facility, part of the massive campaign to eradicate tuberculosis, or the "white plague." The hospital was busiest in the 1930s, housing more than 2,000 patients. Mr. Almirall balanced form and function, designing patient pavilions around a central octagonal kitchen, dividing men's and women's living quarters and connecting all of the campus's important buildings via underground tunnels. Patient rooms had views of rolling hills and let in fresh air and sunlight to help with recovery. Though Spanish Mission style elements are visible in some of the buildings, Mr. Almirall denied any particular architectural influence other than

"simplicity" and "cheerfulness." To this end, he adorned the patient pavilions with brilliant terra cotta tile murals that he designed and had made in Delft, Holland, in 1914.



By the 1950s, a number of TB treatments were perfected -- at Seaview, no less – and most of the structures on the hospital campus were abandoned, one by one. Now, skeletal remains and cracked terra cotta murals are all that's left of the buildings that Mr. Almirall considered the crown jewels of his career. With the exception of a hospital constructed on the campus in 1972, Sea View's buildings have been subject to the ravages of weather, time and the most damaging force of all: neglect.



In the 1980s, the Landmarks Commission did visit Sea View, finding that both its architecture and history warranted landmark status, which it conferred in 1985. Though most of Staten Island is heavily developed, Sea View's 70-acre campus, with its resident hawks and stray cats, steep ravines, rolling hills and copper-beech trees, still feels like a bucolic getaway. And the buildings, though nearly beyond repair, are breathtakingly beautiful.



Our goal is to convert one building as well as a 21,000 square foot garden in Phase I of the Hearts and Hands Complex and expanding our efforts to four additional buildings in future phases.



We hope to restore and preserve these properties because of their historic and esthetic values and convert them into functional facilities providing needed services.



We also hope to provide a rational utilization of this land that for years has been abandoned and unkept.



Future plans include bringing in commercial , recreational and activity centers needed by the community.



All facilities will be staffed with student and adult volunteers while offering paid positions to economically disadvantaged individuals.