Plane crash memorial set to open.

A massive curved vermillion granite memorial wall commemorating the 265 victims who died when Flight 587 enroute to the Dominican Republic crashed in Belle Harbor, Queens will be dedicated during a public ceremony November 12, aproximately five years after the event.

Designed by Dominican artist, Freddy Rodriguez, the project was selected from among 68 design submissions by a selection panel including members of city agencies, the arts community, and the victim's families earlier this year.

The walls $8.5 million construction was completed as part of a collaboration between Rodriguez and the Brooklyn based architectural firm Situ Studio, and the New York City departments of Parks and Recreation and Design and Construction. Rodriguezs' respect for the victims is apparant in the fine details of the 72-foot wall. Names of all 265 victims, and a brief history of the crash in English and Spanish are etched into the granite. Holes of various shapes and sizes are carved into the stone. Ledges have been built for visitors to place momentoes like flowers, photographs and traditional totems. They can look through the holes and see the Atlantic Ocean facing the same direction the plane was facing when it crashed. Sunlight shines through the holes and reaches the viewer on the platform.

"This is the most important work of art I have ever done, definitely the most meaningful. It's a great honor to be able to do this for the victims," Rodriguez said.

Rodriguez did extensive research before selecting the wall--an ancient object that he found to have deep seeded universal meaning for people of all faiths including Catholics, Muslims, and Jews, which has been widely used in the Dominican Republic as early as the 17th century. The hand-built quality of the wall further reinforces people's connection to stone walls throughout history. Rodriguez chose to curve the wall, arcing at 11 feet at its highest peak and five at its lowest--to welcome and embrace people. The wall is located at Beach 116th street and elevated three feet above the ground on a private platform which can be entered from the boardwalk or the street. Six pear trees have been planted there.

"The design is meant to move people, and to create a place where people can go there peacefully and be quiet and think of their loved ones and have some communication with them," Rodriguez said.

Rodriguez had gone to visit the wall several times earlier this year during construction which often carried on late into the night. But it wasn't until he stood at the large open doorway scultpted into the memorial at 9:16 one quiet morning, when light flooded the platform, chills rose on his arms, and he knew that he had done his job right.

"It was an incredible feeling," Rodriguez said. "9:16 a.m. is approximately the same time as the plane crashed. The sun comes right through that gate and fills the space with light."

The open doorway was designed to represent the portal between worlds, which could be defined as the Dominican Republic where the plane was headed and the United States--or the land of the living and the land of the dead. When Rodriguez stood there that morning, the light reminded him of the souls of the victims. Flight 587 crashed just minutes after taking off from Kennedy airport killing all 260 people on board and five people on the ground. The Flight 587 Memorial is located adjacent to Tribute Park, a memorial for those who died in the World Trade Center bombing on Sept. 11,2001, on the Jamaica Bay side of 116th Street.

The memorial selection included people from the Washington Heights community where many of the families of the victims live.

"The memorial will serve as a place to remember and recognize how much people meant to the community," said Evelyn Erskine, spokesperson for the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation.

A member of the DR community, Rodriguez can empathize with the victims and their families. One of his cousins, and a baseball player who was well known when he was growing up in the Dominican Republic, were on Flight 587.

And when he was designing the wall he was acutely aware that he could have been one of the victims.

"I have a very similar experience to many of the people who died. I am an immigrant too, I grew up in DR and then moved here. I take that flight all the time, and I know what that back and forth feeling is like, where you are constantly questioning where is home, and where you belong. I have a love-hate relationship with both places," Rodriguez said.