You may have never noticed this, but there’s a wall in Union Square station where each tile has the name of a dead person on it. If you enter the station near Food Emporium on the corner of 14th St and 4th Ave, you have to angle off to your right after passing through the turn-styles and then head towards the N, Q, and R trains. As you walk down the long passageway to those train lines, on the left hand side you’ll notice the tiles with the names on them. In the photo above I was heading in the opposite direction, coming from the Q and heading towards the station exit.
I somehow doubt this was done by the city, since the names are simply on stickers. Still, it was a great effort on someone’s part to help keep the events of September 11th, 2001 in the public consciousness. Union Square is a major station and sees a lot of foot traffic every day, which could potentially give these stickers a lot of exposure.
I have yet to visit the site of the former World Trade Center since I returned to New York City last September. I suppose I should make it a point to head down there and see what sort of progress they’ve made in rebuilding the area. The last time I was there, in May of 2008, it looked like this:
Bradley Farless 