Tribute in Light

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Manhattan from Jersey City on the 2004 memorial of the September 11 attacks.

The towers of light strike a cloud layer

The Tribute in Light was a temporary art installation of 88 searchlights placed next to the site of the World Trade Center from March 11 to April 14, 2002 to create two vertical columns of light in remembrance of the September 11, 2001 attacks. The installation was launched again in 2003 to mark the second anniversary of the attack, and has been done every year since on September 11.

Those working on the project came up with the concept in the week following the attack.

Architects John Bennett and Gustavo Bonevardi of PROUN Space Studio distributed their "Project for the Immediate Reconstruction of Manhattan's Skyline".

Artists Julian LaVerdiere and Paul Myoda, who before September 11 were working on the 91st floor of the World Trade Center north tower on a proposed light sculpture on the giant radio antenna with Creative Time, conceived of the project "Phantom Towers", and were commissioned by The New York Times Magazine to create an image of the project for its September 23 cover.

Richard Nash Gould, a New York architect, went to the Municipal Art Society with the concept. Gould was part of a firm whose SoHo office looked on the World Trade Center. Other projects by Gould include Howard, Darby & Levin in New York City and Polo Sport, Ralph Lauren in New York City.

On September 19, chairman Philip K. Howard wrote to Mayor Rudy Giuliani, asking him "to consider placing two large searchlights near the disaster site, projecting their light straight up into the sky."

After some consideration it was decided to contact lighting experts in the field of high intensity light displays. A Las Vegas company was chosen to help design the installation and to supply the 88 fixtures that would be needed.

On clear nights, the lights could be seen from over 60 miles away, clearly visible in all of New York City and most of suburban Northern New Jersey and Long Island, Fairfield, Connecticut, Westchester County and Rockland County, New York. The beams were clearly visible from the terrace at Century Country Club in Purchase, NY, and from at least as far west as western Morris County, in Flanders, NJ.

The project was originally going to be named "Towers of Light", but the victims' families complained that the name emphasized the buildings destroyed instead of the people killed.^[1]

The installation can be found in the Spiderman 2 video game, although there are fewer than 88 searchlights and the installation is not geographically correct. The installation is also seen in the opening credits of the 2002 film, The 25th Hour, directed by Spike Lee.