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Starry Night

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The Night/Light Fund
67 Wall St., 22nd Fl.
New York, NY 10005

Email: sn@nightlightfund.org

 

Sunset

A 9-11 Light Tribute

Saturday, September 14, 2002

 

"The Pace Community is delighted to take on this project to commemorate the lives lost on September 11th. We believe that this will make an enormous impact on anyone who was affected by this tragedy."

Center for Community Outreach
Pace University

 

"It is a wonderful idea, and we would be glad to help."

Mrs. Xian Zhang
Director of Translation and Editorial Division
The United Nations

 

     As an "aesthetic response" to the attack on the World Trade Centers, internationally recognized light artist James Pelletier and pyrotechnic designer Peter Tremblay have collaborated to create Starry Night. The event will be part of the anniversary activities planned for the week of September 11, and it will take place on Saturday, September 14. Other events that are being planned include "Sail for America". Starry Night is a project of The Night/Light Fund. The project has received Special Event Permits from the City of New York Department of Parks & Recreation for viewing sites from Battery Park and the Brooklyn Heights Promenade. September 14 is the 188th Anniversary of the writing of Francis Scott Keyıs "The Star Spangled Banner" and the poem will be read at the Invocation for Starry Night at sunset.

     As part of their "Helping to Revitalize New York" campaign, The Greater New York Chamber of Commerce has endorsed the project and has pledged their help. In keeping with "The Seton Bridge: Rebuilding the spirit of Lower Manhattan," The Shrine of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton has committed the use of their building for displaying lights and will assist in providing volunteer services and work space. John Doswell will volunteer as a consultant to the event. Materials coordination will be overseen by Betty Djerf. To date, students from Pace University, Borough of Manhattan Community College and St. John's University will volunteer their efforts to create Starry Night, and it is anticipated that other Downtown schools will join in the community effort. The New Amsterdam Branch of the New York Public Library will provide meeting space for Starry Night. The Regent Wall Street has generously offered hotel accommodations for out-of-town contributors to Starry Night.

    The names of the victims will be read by volunteers from the New York Unit of Recording for the Blind & Dyslexic. Translation Service at the United Nations will assist Starry Night with pronunciations of some of the victim's names. Bob Casey of Dale Pro Audio will donate his services to design a sound system for Battery Park. Mr. Casey designed the sound system for the Pope's visit to Battery Park and for Op Sail.

     From the windows of the buildings facing Battery Park approximately 3000 battery powered strobe lights will randomly twinkle, creating a galaxy of shimmering light. Each strobe light will represent a person lost on September 11. The lights will become visible at dusk and will continue until the batteries' energy fades. The strobe lights will be offered to the families of those who were lost on September 11 as a memento of this somber event which is a luminescent eulogy to their loved ones lives. The conception and celestial title of the work were inspired by a letter from Vincent Van Gogh to his brother in which he alludes to the human spirit ascending to a star upon death. Van Gogh also painted a nightscape by the same title.

     The strobe lights, which are powered by alkaline batteries, will be suspended in the windows by suction cups. The cups have been donated by Suction Cups, Inc. of Greenpoint, NY. A reflector will be attached to each strobe light to enhance its visibility and on the back of each reflector will be the name and photograph of each person lost. The photographs of the victims will be as they appeared in The New York Times' "Portraits of Grief" column (free membership available). The Night/Light Fund will seek donations to pay for the strobe lights. The batteries will be donated by Energizer. The plastic hanging tabs for the reflectors will be donated by Do-It Corporation. The copper clamps that hold the lights were purchased for Starry Night by a wonderful couple who wish to be identified as "Ron & Carole." 1500 of the 3000 mirrors needed have been donated by K-10 Enterprises, who also paid for the shipping. The metal picture hooks will be sold at-cost by Moore Push-Pin Company. Johnson & Sons Inc., will donate 3000 Ziploc sandwich bags to put the light assemblies in. 3M will donate the tape to mount the photographs onto the mirrors. 3000 Ziploc bags were donated by S.C Johnson & Sons, Inc. of Racine, WI.

     The batteries, copper clamps, suction cups, picture hooks, mirrors, and plastic hooks are all in storage in NYC. All we need to do now is raise $7.75 per light assembly to honor the 2819 people killed on September 11 and the materials for the strobe light assembly aspect of Starry Night will be complete.

     The strobe lights are in a warehouse in New Hampshire. A truck and a driver are awaiting notification in NH, and then they will be delivered to NYC in 10 hours after they are loaded onto the truck. As soon as we find the funds, the strobe light importer will make them available for pick-up.

     David Vasquez was a Security Guard at World Trade Center Two from March of 1993 to January of 2001. He was so touched by Starry Night that he gave his WTC "2000 Building of the Year" pin to Jim Pelletier. Jim's response: utterly speechless.

     It is our solemn honor to inform all that all the available photographs of the September 11 tragedy for Starry Night have been downloaded from the Internet. This awesome and gruelling task was performed by Jing Yu Deng, a student at Pace University's School of Computer Science & Information Systems. Jing Yu is an extraordinary and courageous young man. If our future is in the hands of students like Jing Yu, we can all sigh a breath of relief.

     Terri Adams, President of Precision Arts Advertising Inc., has donated a generous amount of professional time developing and continuously updating the Starry Night section of the www.nightlightfund.org website. For nearly two decades, Precision Arts has designed award-winning print and website graphics for an extensive array of industries.

     Mr. Pelletier and Mr. Tremblay have known each other since early childhood. In 1979 they worked in collaboration with musicians, dancers and theater technicians to create a light performance entitled, Moondance. The New York Times called Moondance, "A fairy tale of the technological age with ingenious lighting effects."

     John Doswell is a co-owner of the retired fireboat John J. Harvey which was called back to active duty on September 11 to pump water for fire fighting crews who could not use the disabled land side fire hydrants for several days.

     Rev. Peter K. Meehan, Pastor of Our Lady of the Rosary/Shrine of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton will assist in developing Wall Street community volunteer groups and the location of work sites. The Seton Shrine was the only church in the Wall Street community that was fully functional on September 11 and it provided the much needed use of telephones, food, shelter and a spiritual haven. Volunteers will coordinate the assembly, testing, labeling and distribution of the strobe lights to each participating building. As part of their involvement with the creation of Starry Night the volunteers will affix the images and names of the victims onto the back of each reflector to personalize the meaning of each strobe light. The Seton Shrine will be open to the public on September 14, and Fr. Meehan will lead an Invocation at the beginning of the pyrotechnic tribute.

     The Night/Light Fund is a community service organization that provides assistance to the creative arts community throughout the United States. The fund's primary commitment is to ensure that in their moment of need and vulnerability that creative people will be treated with respect and dignity.

     Donations are tax deductible. Please make checks payable to: Circum-Arts and write "The Night/Light Fund" on the purpose line of the check. Mail to: The Night/Light Fund, 67 Wall St., 22nd Fl., New York, NY 10005.

 

 

 

 

Starry Night Poster

You can help!

We need your support in spreading word about "Starry Night." Please download one of the files below, print it out (color is best) and post it. If you do not have access to a color printer, you can save the file to a disk and bring it to a local photocopy store which should be able to print it for you.

76K file in PDF format

56K file in JPG format

Click here to download the PDF version of the Starry Night poster.

Cick on this link to download the free Acrobat Reader 5.0 from the Adobe website.

Click here to download the JPG version of the Starry Night poster.

Both posters are standard 8-1/2" x 11"

 

 

 

 

 

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