Iconic Survivor of Sept. 11 Will Return to Park Home

By Ronald Drenger

The man with the briefcase, who sat in Liberty Plaza across the street from the World Trade Center for almost 20 years and then became an icon of 9/11 after surviving the terrorist attack, will soon reclaim his spot on one of the park’s benches.

Double Check outside the artist's studio in New Jersey in February 2004. Photo: Allan Tannenbaum

Double Check, J. Seward Johnson’s hyper-realistic bronze sculpture of a man in suit and tie looking inside an open briefcase on his lap, will return after the plaza is renovated later this year with new trees, planters and benches. The California-based Sculpture Foundation, which owns and manages Johnson’s collection, and Brookfield Properties, owner of the plaza and an office building next to it, recently agreed to bring the work back.

But Double Check will be slightly different. Johnson has added a grayish patina to the bronze to make it look as it did immediately after the terrorist attack, covered in dust and ash. News photos from that day showed the sculpture, intact and upright, surrounded by trade center debris.

“I feel that he has changed and I’m acknowledging the change,” Johnson said. “He’s a survivor. We all have dust from 9/11 on us, and he personifies that feeling.”

Double Check will sit on a granite bench under a tree in the northwest corner of the plaza, facing the trade center site, with a plaque describing him as “a poignant reminder of hope and endurance for us all.”

“We are really glad to restore the sculpture to our beautiful renovated park,” said Melissa Coley, a spokeswoman for Brookfield, calling Double Check “a symbol of survival and the indomitable spirit of the people of Lower Manhattan.”

Johnson has also reworked a second casting of Double Check to commemorate 9/11. In the weeks after the attack, emergency workers covered the sculpture with flowers, flags, notes, candles, and patches identifying rescue units. A white FBI hard hat was placed on his head and a teddy bear against his right foot.

Johnson photographed the sculpture and collected some of the mementos. He made bronze castings of the objects, welded them onto the second Double Check just as he had found them, painted them, and gave this piece, too, an ash-colored patina.

This sculpture, titled Makeshift Memorial, will be installed in October in the Hudson River Walkway, a waterfront park in New Jersey across the river from the trade center site.

People who work near Liberty Plaza and remember the sculpture said they were happy he was coming back.

“He belongs there,” said Jennifer Pierson, who works at One Liberty Plaza and used to pass Double Check every day as she walked to her office from the PATH station. “He’s part of our park. We missed him.”

Jeannette Postorino, who also works at One Liberty Plaza and previously worked at the Deutsche Bank building on Liberty Street, said that she will welcome the sculpture back, but was a bit startled to learn about the gray, ashen addition.

“It’s a little disturbing,” she said. “Downtown will always be intellectually patinated from the dust—I don’t know if we need another reminder. But I understand the artist’s perspective