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Can
9/11 Icon Come Home?
by Ronald Drenger
Will the bronze man with the briefcase find his way back home to Lower Manhattan?
For almost 20 years, he sat on a bench in Liberty Plaza, across the street
from the World Trade Center, perpetually staring into the open briefcase
on his lap. Double Check, as the sculpture by J. Seward Johnson, Jr., is
called, symbolized the mundane, the routine—the Everyman going about
his business, easily lost among crowds of people much like him.
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But on Sept. 11, 2001, the sculpture took on new meaning. It survived
the terrorist attack intact and upright, though covered in ash and
surrounded by trade center debris. In photos taken that day, the
human figure on the bench, sitting placidly amid the destruction,
was a disturbing and poignant presence.
Within weeks, emergency workers and others had covered Double Check
with flowers, American flags, notes, candles and the patches of
rescue units from around the country. Photos of the decorated sculpture
appeared in the press and Double Check became an icon, both a symbol
of survival and a memorial to the victims.
After being moved several times, the sculpture was brought last
November to Johnson’s studio in Hamilton, N.J. There it now
sits, still coated in places by a film of World Trade Center dust
awaiting its next move. Discussions are underway for its return
to Liberty Plaza or perhaps the World Trade Center site.
His creator wants him back in the plaza. “I truly believe that’s
where he belongs, in his original spot, but as he existed after
9/11,” Johnson said in a phone interview from Florida. “He
is a survivor, and he is sort of, as a humanesque figure, an embodiment
of those who didn’t survive.”
But Paula Stoeke, executive director of the Sculpture Foundation
in California, which owns and administers Johnson’s collection,
said
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she would prefer a spot for the work on the redeveloped grounds of the World
Trade Center site. The foundation submitted the idea to the Lower Manhattan
Development Corp. last year as part of the memorial competition.
“We said we were open to any placement
site that suited the architects and designers,” Stoeke said.
“We want that absolutely ruled out before we decide to place
it at any other site.”
Brookfield Properties, which owns the building at One Liberty Plaza
and the plaza itself, has told the Sculpture Foundation that it would
welcome Double Check back to its former home after the plaza is renovated
later this year. (See story at right.) Last month, Brookfield sent
the foundation renderings of the plaza’s new design.
“We’d absolutely love to have it,” said Larry Graham,
Brookfield’s executive vice president.
Ultimately, the Sculpture Foundation’s board of directors, of
which Johnson is chairman, will decide where it should go.
“It’s likely the foundation would honor what Seward Johnson wants to do,” Stoeke said. |
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Before it goes anywhere, the piece will
be altered. Johnson said he plans to clean the sculpture and cover
it with a grayish patina, to make it look as it did immediately after
the terrorist attack. Johnson is also making changes to a second casting
of Double Check, which was being exhibited in Germany at the time
of the attack. (A total of seven castings exist, according to Stoeke.)
In October 2001 he photographed the makeshift memorial at Liberty
Plaza and took some of the mementos that had been left there. He made
bronze castings of the objects and welded them onto the second Double
Check, arranged just as he had found them, making them a permanent
part of the work. Last month the new elements were being painted,
and this piece, too, will be given an ash-colored patina. Its future
home is undetermined.
For the original Downtown Double Check, Johnson said he wants it “to
be an everyday experience for people, as he was before.”
If it returns to Lower Manhattan, he said, “It would give people
a certain pang: Look, he’s still there. He weathered that storm.”
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