Click for printable version
Click to send to a friend

Remembering Sept. 11 What started as a spontaneous tribute in front of New York-New York after terrorists attacked the twin towers has yet to stop growing. Firefighters from around the world have left T-shirts and company patches at the memorial as a way to show solidarity with the firefighters who died Sept. 11. The casino has plans to make the tribute permanent. Photo by Craig L. Moran. What began as a small, spontaneous tribute in front of New York-New York's Statue of Liberty replica has grown to include thousands of shirts, messages, hats, pins and other items, all memorializing victims of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Photo by Craig L. Moran. David Schwartz, University of Nevada, Las Vegas gaming studies coordinator, displays some of the shirts and messages left in front of New York-New York. Photo by Amy Beth Bennett.

Sunday, September 08, 2002
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

Spontaneous to Sublime

9-11 tribute grows as casino prepares to make it permanent

It began with flowers and candles.

Whichever came first, it was probably started by one person as a way to vent anger, feelings of helplessness or to make a private statement in a public way.

It was Sept. 11 and people from around the world were stuck in Las Vegas, unable to fly home. All air traffic was grounded since terrorists hijacked and crashed commercial airplanes into American landmarks that morning, killing thousands.

People stood glued to television screens throughout casinos disbelieving, horrified at the images. Others watched and talked on cell phones, trying to arrange a way home or find out about a friend in New York City or Washington, D.C.

At some point that afternoon, New York-New York executives aren't sure when, a few people paused in front of the casino's replica of the Statue of Liberty and New York fire department fireboats to leave candles and flowers, presumably in tribute to those who were killed in the attacks.

No one encouraged it, yet, over the days, weeks and months since the attacks, the number of offerings grew to include poems, pictures, hats and thousands of T-shirts.

David Schwartz, University of Nevada, Las Vegas gaming studies coordinator, passes New York-New York on his way to work in the mornings. He noticed the memorial at the corner of Tropicana Avenue and the Strip almost immediately after it began.

As a researcher who studies every facet of casinos and gaming, Schwartz realized the significance of the site and hoped it wouldn't be lost on the casino's executives.

"It's pretty interesting that people chose a casino to make this memorial. I think that says a lot about what people think of Las Vegas," Schwartz said.

More than 3,000 shirts, mostly left by firefighters in support of the 343 firefighters who died in the World Trade Center, have overwhelmed the property's wrought-iron fence. Many of the items are sun-faded, the messages blurred.

Schwartz recently started sorting, recording and preserving the offerings, at the request of casino officials who plan to turn this organic, improvised memorial into a permanent tribute by December.

Why and how it started are two questions Schwartz will attempt to answer about the memorial as he preserves the weathered shirts and hand-written messages in acid-free boxes. One thing he knows is that the monument grows whenever firefighters are in town for a vacation or convention.

"You're not sure why they originally chose to leave items there but part of creating an exhibit is finding out what happened," Schwartz explained. "As someone who studies casinos, I never thought I would see a time where a casino became almost a religious site."

The idea that people pay tribute at a Las Vegas business that happens to look like New York City circa the 1940s is what Schwartz doesn't understand. After all, the property wasn't involved in the events of Sept. 11 and the twin towers aren't represented in the architecture.

But Schwartz is finding answers among the artifacts, especially in the shirts. They tell a simple, heartbreaking story in the form of personal messages left by family and friends who lost loved ones and even strangers who were affected by the terrorist attacks.

One T-shirt has been on the fence for 11 months, buried under a layer of several others. It almost blends in with the other messages of encouragement and thanks from fire departments around the world.

It reads: "In Memory of Capt. Carl DiFranco. We miss you and love you. The DiFranco family, Staten Island. 10-24-01."

A note pinned to the bottom is faded, the writing gone.

Another shirt on the top layer simply reads: "Thank you USA. Spanish Harlem Ladder 43, FDNY." On the right side, someone drew a pierced, crying heart.

New Yorkers Marie Sauer and Joyce Salisbury, walking to the New York-New York on a recent Friday, didn't have to read one shirt before realizing the significance of the monument in front of them.

"At first I thought it was a lot of people looking at the water," Sauer said.

They spent a few confused moments trying to figure out what was going on. Sauer even wondered if the shirts were for sale.

When she realized what it was, Sauer shook her head, repeating, "It's wonderful."

Salisbury wept. With two volunteer firefighter sons, she knew what these T-shirts meant to the people who left them. But it was her aunt who said it.

"Firemen are brothers and they're willing to give the shirts off their backs for each other," Sauer said. "I'm sure they're very proud to have hung their shirts on this fence. And the guys who are gone are saying, `Thanks guys.' I get goose bumps thinking about it."

Being the caretaker of this de facto tribute is a unique position for a casino, said Felix Rappaport, New York-New York's president and chief operating officer. But, since visitors have entrusted them with the artifacts, hotel representatives say they will handle the monument with respect and esteem.

They plan a simple tribute, Rappaport said, paid for with a corporate fund set aside for miscellaneous projects. A granite structure with shadow boxes encasing most of the artifacts will take up the space in front of the hotel's Statue of Liberty replica.

There is no way to display everything at the same time, Schwartz said, and the tribute continues to grow. He expects people to keep leaving messages and T-shirts, especially as more become aware of the permanent memorial. The items will be rotated to ensure everything is displayed.

Rappaport hopes to have artifacts cataloged in a way that will allow people to access information about each item via video terminals inside the hotel.

"We are very aware of who and what we are," Rappaport said. "We don't have an inflated opinion of ourselves. We would never have been so presumptuous as to say `Let's put a shrine up.' We're very aware that we're not the government or Washington, D.C., or New York City. We're a casino. That's really what we are, a casino in Las Vegas."

But casinos often come to mean much more to the people who spend their vacations in Las Vegas, enjoying the entertainment, restaurants and in general, just having fun, Schwartz said.

"Casinos are places people come to ... forget about life," Schwartz said. "They are really larger than life and they come to symbolize something to people."

Whatever the reason behind the monument's creation, Schwartz said, its existence does two things.

"It's demonstrating Americans' resolve to fight. And it's memorializing the victims," Schwartz said. "Whoever started it did it to make a statement: `This is who we are and what we stand for and we're not going to give up.' "