We disembarked from the double decker tour bus at the Battery Park stop (closest stop to the Liberty/Ellis Islands ferry terminal).

On the way to the line for the ferry, we came across “The Sphere”. This was the 45,000 lbs steel and bronze sculpture that stood in the center of the fountain at the World Trade Center Tobin Plaza (part of the grounds between the WTC buildings).

This striking work was made by Fritz Koenig (a German artist who is also known for a varity of Holocaust memorials in concentration camps and in Israel). It stood atop it’s famous perch from sometime in 1971 (I don’t know the official start date), until September 11, 2001.

The sculpture was intended to symbolize world peace (or, perhaps, to comment on the lack thereof). The original piece depicted a spherical form that was separating or breaking to show some of the heavy dark internals as well as discontinuous exterior bronze surfaces. It looked a globe (a world) that was broken, yet still together. This “broken” sphere was positioned atop a heavy pedastal themed similarly to the sphere itself.

The events of 9/11 added a variety of dents and holes to the structure, but the overall form remains remarkably similar to it’s original state.

It was moved to Battery Park less than a year after the mass murderous acts of war that will (or at least should) live in infamy.

“The Sphere” now stands alongside an eternal flame that was lit on September 11, 2002. It once symbolized world peace by [apparently] commenting on the lack of it. “The Sphere” now memorializes the victims of an immoral and unprovoked attack against our people and our values, by displaying physical evidence of a particularly reprehensible act of war by the enemies of decency, peace, and liberty.