UMass Magazine Online




	James Young in the University Gallery with Joel Meyerowitz’s Bathtub Wall, The Blue Hour. (May 1, 2002. Lambda print on RC paper. Courtesy World Trade Center Archive and the Ariel Meyerowitz Gallery. Photo by Ben Barnhart.)

THIS FALL, THE UNIVERSITY GALLERY was host to Aftermath: Images from Ground Zero. The traveling exhibition features stunning large color photographs by Joel Meyerowitz, the only photographer to gain unlimited access to the site of the World Trade Center bombing. Speaking after Meyerowitz at the opening of the exhibition on campus was UMass Amherst Professor James E. Young. Much like the photographer’s, Young’s professional life has been drawn into new territory by the horrific events of 9/11.

Only a few mind-numbing days after two hijacked airplanes crashed into the twin towers Young got a call from the New York City Mayor’s Office. Would he agree to be a consultant to the city on how to commemorate the catastrophe? Young is an expert on memorial architecture. He is professor of English and chair of the department of Judaic and Near Eastern studies and author of several acclaimed books on Holocaust memorialization. He has also curated a major exhibition on the subject.

Young agreed to help. In what was to become a weekly trek, he drove to New York City for meetings with organizations concerned with rebuilding. The firm of Studio Daniel Libeskind of New York was chosen to create an overall site plan for the 4.7 acres. Libeskind envisions a memorial surrounded by museums, cultural centers, and office and retail buildings.

Last April, Young was named by the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation to a 13-member jury charged with reviewing entries in the site memorial competition and choosing a winning proposal. A whopping 13,800 people from around the world paid their $25 filing fee, and the jury eventually received 5,201 entries in what Young calls “the largest design competition ever.” He and fellow jurors, who include architect Maya Linn, artist Martin Puryear, Vartan Gregorian of the Carnegie Corporation, and others, spent the summer reviewing the anonymous designs and “culling, culling, culling,” Young says. By summer’s end the jury had selected 20 finalists; by November there were eight. The models and animations of the eight finalists may be seen at the World Financial Center through January and on-line at www.wtcsitememorial.org/finalists.html. As UMass went to press, a winner had yet to be named. There is no cash prize but the winner will see his or her work executed on one of the world’s most famous sites with a budget that could run, depending on the design, into many millions of dollars.

One day, when it’s all over and he’s not commuting to New York every week, Young will probably write his personal reflections on the experience. Meantime, he is drafting a section on creating the World Trade Center memorial for a three-volume work commissioned by the Russell Sage Foundation on issues raised by the events of September 11, 2001.

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