City Council action scheduled on site for memorial to six Worcester firefighters
November 18, 2003
Contact:
Link McKie
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WORCESTER, Mass. -- A City Council committee has recommended that the full council approve proposals that would allow for the next stage of creation of a memorial to six Worcester firefighters who died in a devastating warehouse fire near downtown in December 1999.
The City Council has on its meeting agenda for 7 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 18, a recommendation from the council's Youth, Parks and Recreation Committee in favor of transferring control of a proposed site to a committee overseeing design and construction of the memorial.
The Worcester Fire Fighters Memorial Committee seeks to gain temporary control of the almost nine-acre site for the design and construction of the memorial. The committee also is asking the council to approve a trust agreement under which the memorial would be donated to the city and the site would revert to the city of Worcester's control once the memorial is built.
The memorial site is on Fire Department land next to the department's headquarters off Grove Street and on scenic Salisbury Pond across from Institute Park.
The council's Youth, Parks and Recreation Committee held a public hearing on the committee's proposals Monday, Nov. 10. More than 50 people attended, including members of the families of the six firefighters who died in the fire at Worcester Cold Storage and Warehouse Co. Dec. 3, 1999, and active and retired members of the Fire Department.
"One of the overriding reasons our committee chose this site was with the public in mind," Michael J. Donoghue, chairman of the Worcester Fire Fighters Memorial Committee, told the council committee. "This site clearly offers the best opportunity to make our memorial to our own fallen heroes the most accessible of monuments to the public. The public throughout the nation mourned with us when we lost our heroes. We want the public to be able to remember them with us too. We can think of no better place to do that than on these grounds."
At the end of the hearing, the committee voted unanimously to recommend that the full council approve the memorial committee's proposals for the site.
City Manager Thomas Hoover had already recommended to the City Council in August that it approve the proposals.
Obtaining rights to the site will permit the memorial committee to begin:
- 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, which includes relatives of two of the six fallen firefighters, voted unanimously more than a year ago to choose the Grove Street site for the memorial. Members of the other four firefighters' families also have endorsed the Grove Street site.
The committee has formally named the site "Worcester Fire Fighters Memorial Park 5-1438, December 3, 1999." The numbers represent the fire's five alarms and the Fire Department code for the location of the Worcester Cold Storage fire. The six firefighters died during rescue operations in the building, located off Route 290 near downtown Worcester. Their deaths were 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 its work in late 2001 to establish a 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. The nation joined with Worcester in mourning their deaths. About 30,000 firefighters and 10,000 civilians attended a memorial service six days after their deaths. It was believed to have been the largest such service for firefighters killed on duty. Firefighters from across the country and from other countries attended, as did scores of prominent officials, among them President Bill Clinton and Vice President Al Gore.
The memorial committee's charge is 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.
Since choosing the Grove Street site, the committee has voted for 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 decide on the winning design from 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 is held to award the design contract.
The committee has adopted 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."
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Last modified: Aug 12, 2004, 11:43 EDT