Jury to choose winning design for Worcester firefighters memorial
September 21, 2004
Contact:
Link McKie
+1-617-373-8324
+1-617-373-8773 (fax)
l.mckie@neu.edu
WORCESTER, Mass. – A blue-ribbon jury is deciding this week on the winning design for the planned memorial for the six Worcester firefighters who died during a warehouse fire in 1999.
The 11-member jury is scheduled to meet Thursday, Sept. 23, and Friday, Sept. 24, at Worcester Polytechnic Institute to select the winner of the two-stage national design competition. The jury will choose from among the five finalists’ entries submitted for the Worcester firefighters memorial. A total of 158 entries from throughout the United States were submitted for the first stage of the national design competition.
The winning designer will be announced at a press conference Monday, Sept. 27.
The five finalists from the first stage of the design competition are vying to design the memorial and the memorial park that will surround it.
The $3-million to $5-million memorial and memorial park, to be financed through a public fund-raising campaign, will be built on a scenic site next to Worcester Fire Department headquarters off Grove Street on Salisbury Pond across from Institute Park.
The jury will review the finished work of the five finalists both Thursday, Sept. 23, and Friday, Sept. 24, before voting on the winner Friday, Sept. 24.
The public is invited to view the design entries from 6 to 9 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 23, in Alden Memorial Hall at WPI, 100 Institute Road.
The five finalists whose scale models will be on display are competing for a first prize of $30,000 and the opportunity to continue to develop the design of the memorial. The second-place finisher will receive $8,000; third place, $5,000; and fourth and fifth place, $1,000 each plus commendations for design excellence.
Members of the competition jury are:
Denis Leary, the Worcester-bred comedian, actor and producer, and president of The Leary Firefighters Foundation.
Cheryl Barton, principal of The Office of Cheryl Barton in San Francisco, which specializes in landscape architecture and urban design.
Wellington Reiter, dean of the College of Architecture and Environmental Design at Arizona State University.
Charles W. Harris, professor emeritus at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design.
Andrés T. Rojas, president of Rojas Group Inc. of Boston, specialists in architecture, landscape architecture, interior design, and planning.
Cameron B. Roberts, director of development for KV Associates Inc. of Boston.
Gerard A. Dio, chief of the Worcester Fire Department.
Robert B. McCarthy, president of the Professional Fire Fighters of Massachusetts, representing more than 12,000 paid professional union firefighters.
Robert A. DiPoli, fire chief in Needham and second vice president of the International Association of Fire Chiefs.
Ellen S. Dunlap, president of the American Antiquarian Society in Worcester.
Robert Moylan Jr., commissioner of the Worcester Department of Public Works.
The Worcester Fire Fighters Memorial Committee sought design entries nationwide this past spring.
The Worcester Fire Fighters Memorial Committee began working 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. They died Dec. 3, 1999, trying to save the lives of others in an abandoned warehouse 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.
(PLEASE NOTE: Members of the news media are invited to view the finished designs of the five finalists from 11:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 23, in Alden Hall at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, 100 Institute Road. The scale models of the designs can be photographed and videotaped. There will be opportunities to interview members of the design jury and representatives of the Worcester Fire Fighters Memorial Committee. Lunch will be served at 1 p.m.)
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Last modified: Sep 23, 2004, 09:01 EDT