Living memorials exist all across the country, but are concentrated in the areas surrounding the crash sites: the New York City metropolitan area, the Washington, D.C.-Virginia area, and near Shanksville, PA.\u00a0 Many of them were created in the immediate days and months following September 11, on much quicker timelines than the formal, state-led built memorials that are now dedicated and open to the public at these sites.\u00a0 The Living Memorials Project was funded by the USDA Forest Service to provide community grants to stewardship groups and conduct research to understand changes in the use of the landscape post-September 11.\u00a0 In many cases, the creation and maintenance of these sites was led by civic groups\u2014from informal groups of friends to formalized nonprofits\u2014who sought to create a more immediate, accessible, and local response to the event.\u00a0 (To search a list of these sites, visit the National Registry<\/span><\/a>.\u00a0 To read 12 journeys through these Living Memorials, visit Land-Markings<\/i><\/span><\/a>.\u00a0 To learn more about the social meanings of community-based memorials in the \u2018pre-memorial period, read this article<\/span><\/a>.)\u00a0 So, unlike the Gettysburg Battlefield or the built monuments on the National Mall that are meant to remain in perpetuity in a fixed image, these sites may be more malleable in response to local changes and needs\u2014both because of their physical form as nature-based sites<\/i> and because of their governance as often civic-led <\/i>spaces.<\/p>\n Starting next year, we plan to systematically return to a sample of the 113 stewardship groups that we interviewed and the nearly 700 sites that we documented nationwide.\u00a0 We began that process earlier this summer at the request of documentary filmmaker, Scott Elliott, who is creating a film called The Trees<\/span><\/a>.\u00a0 In seeking to tell the story of the memorial forest at the World Trade Center, Scott learned of the hundreds of community-based sites that use trees, plants, and nature to memorialize the event and wanted to visit a few.\u00a0 So we selected two sites in the New York City area that we hadn\u2019t formally interviewed or interacted with since 2006, not knowing what we would find.<\/p>\n The trip inspired us as researchers about the power of these sites and reinforced some important lessons about community stewardship as it persists over time.\u00a0 In particular, our visits to two sites have reinforced our appreciation for the persistence, responsiveness, and adaptability of civic stewardship.\u00a0 We see that community-managed spaces can be sustained throughout the passage of time, changes in leadership, changes in the economy, and even changes in climate.\u00a0 We\u2019d like to share some reflections\u2026.<\/p>\n Tribute Park, Rockaway, NY<\/strong><\/p>\n One common concern about community-led stewardship is that it is temporary or fleeting\u2014as many informal groups are small in terms of staff and budgets, are volunteer-powered, and lack the institutional authority of government.\u00a0 Yet, Tribute Park shows the persistence of community stewardship even in the face of leadership transitions and major disasters.<\/p>\n The site was created, starting in 2002, by the local Chamber of Commerce.\u00a0 It was a vacant, waterfront lot, on the Jamaica Bay side of the Rockaway Peninsula.\u00a0 Just blocks from the busy, public beach on the Atlantic Ocean side, the Bay side of the Peninsula always offered a more quiet space for interacting with nature through viewing, fishing, and crabbing.\u00a0 On September 11, members of the public gathered along the bay, including at the vacant lot, to view the smoldering World Trade Center (WTC) towers.\u00a0 The Chamber of Commerce envisioned a contemplative space that would reflect the seaside character of the Rockaways and would uniquely commemorate the victims of the Rockaways.\u00a0 The peninsula lost a number of residents that day\u2014including many members of the uniformed services\u2014as well as downtown workers in New York City\u2019s financial district.<\/p>\n Since then, a new group has emerged to tend the site\u2014The Friends of Tribute Park<\/span><\/a>.\u00a0 Still powered by volunteers, many of whom are retired residents of the Rockaways, the care for the site is clear.\u00a0 They have added new elements to the park\u2014including a piece of WTC steel that they had to go to court in order to secure and install.\u00a0 Every Tuesday morning, from 8:30-10:00am\u2014in remembrance of when the planes struck the WTC towers, they hold volunteer stewardship days, where anyone from the public can come and help take care of the site.\u00a0 Bernie Coburn of Friends of Tribute Park called the site a \u201chands on park\u201d that will keep changing over time as the group works to \u201cmaintain beauty with a personal touch.\u201d\u00a0 When asked whether he considers the site a sacred space, he said that it was, because it is \u201ca living project\u2014I live for it.\u201d\u00a0 Clearly, the ongoing stewardship and maintenance of the site\u2014perhaps more so than the physical form or the symbolism or design\u2014makes the site sacred.<\/p>\n The site also endured and persisted through Hurricane Sandy, which inundated the entire peninsula of the Rockaways.\u00a0 While many residents were struggling to rebuild their homes and restore their lives, stewards also took the time to help restore Tribute Park\u2014because they knew that the site was an important gathering space and community resource that merited rebuilding.\u00a0 In addition, the NYC Parks Department provided crucial personnel and heavy equipment, showing that civic stewardship does not work in the absence of government support.\u00a0 Indeed, the volunteers told us that NYC Parks\u2019 crews visit the site weekly to assist with maintenance of the site.\u00a0 While the initial creation of the park was civic-led\u2014with civic stewards operating as a unique form of \u201cfirst responder\u201d to the 9\/11 tragedy, they still work in partnership with state through grant funding, regulatory compliance, and general maintenance.\u00a0 We see that these public-private partnerships exist at many scales and in many contexts.\u00a0 Just as the flagship parks of Central Park and Prospect Park have their prominent private partners\u2014the Central Park Conservancy and the Prospect Park Alliance, so too does this tiny, 30,000 square foot site have the Friends of Tribute Park, which ensures its care and upkeep.<\/p>\n New Jersey\u2019s Grove of Remembrance, Liberty State Park, Jersey City, NJ<\/strong><\/p>\n Community-based stewardship is often expressed in vacant lots and community gardens\u2014sites that are outside the reach or care of the state or the market or that are deliberately managed via community control.\u00a0 Discussing the case of the North Brooklyn post-industrial waterfront in the 1990s, Daniel Campos writes about these moments in time and space as an \u201cAccidental Playground<\/i>\u201d\u2014where members of the public have the ability and autonomy to create, shape, and manage the use of space.\u00a0 Once the state and the market come back in, even in a case where a formal park is designated as it was in North Brooklyn\u2014the role for the public tends to shift from creator\/steward\/manager to \u201cuser\u201d.\u00a0 The Liberty State Park memorial, however, is a unique example of ongoing civic stewardship within a designated state park.<\/p>\n When community stewardship occurs on parkland, it can range from one-time, large-scale volunteer tree planting days to decades long dedication by \u2018friends of the park\u2019 groups, alliances and coalitions. The Grove of Remembrance at Liberty State Park was born out of the spirit of long-time community stewardship and created via hundreds of volunteer arborists, 9\/11 family members, New Jersey residents, and Friends of Liberty State Park who came together to help plant this 10 acre former brownfield site with 691 trees (to honor all of the New Jersey victims who perished).\u00a0 These volunteer events are filled with the excitement and energy of getting hands dirty and \u201cdoing something.\u201d\u00a0 Indeed, both authors participated in the planting of this site, and we feel materially and physically connected to its creation.<\/p>\n The ongoing care and attention of the nonprofit New Jersey Tree Foundation (NJTF) over the past 10 years has created opportunities for the public to continue to be involved. \u00a0 NJTF is primarily responsible for the maintenance of the site, though it is on state land, so we see an example of hybrid governance at work.\u00a0 Thus NJTF uses its own staff and its partnerships with civic, private, and school groups to help maintain the site.\u00a0 For example, NJTF has worked with area schools to use the grove as a space for environmental education.\u00a0 Area students learn about the life cycle of trees and plants, starting seedlings in their classroom, and then coming to the grove to engage in planting and maintenance.<\/p>\n Another pattern we see repeated with these sacred sites of social meaning: people go above and beyond their traditional professional roles and see their engagement with sites as a form of \u2018giving back\u2019 voluntarily. Working via NJTF, the professional arborist and forestry community in New Jersey has effectively \u201cadopted\u201d the site\u2014donating thousands of hours of services, labor, and expertise. Like Tribute Park, the waterfront Grove of Remembrance was also flooded and heavily affected by Hurricane Sandy.\u00a0 The site is directly adjacent to a marina and after the storm, entire boats were found stranded and overturned inside the grove.\u00a0 Heavy equipment was required to remove the boats, remove the downed trees that could not be saved, and right the trees that could be saved.\u00a0 Volunteer arborists were involved in all stages of the Sandy recovery of the grove, making tree assessments, removals, and continuing to monitor the site over time.<\/p>\n What is even more unique is when we see signs of individual acts of stewardship and care that occur outside<\/i> the frame of these formal events and programs.\u00a0 The ability to embrace these acts as healthy and productive forms of engagement, rather than intrusion into the authorities of the land manager, requires an ethos that is open to community action, voice, and power.\u00a0 Lisa Simms of the NJTF showed us examples of \u201cguerrilla plantings\u201d that occurred in the grove\u2014people have brought bushes and flowers and are planting in the understory to complete the grove through their individual acts.\u00a0 Lisa pointed out the flowers that she, herself, planted from her home garden.\u00a0 These are examples of the public intimately engaging with the space, adopting it, and transforming it.\u00a0 This type of engagement, regardless of whether it deviates from the master plan, is welcome in places like this as stewards are more interested in cultivating an attachment to place rather than viewing a \u2018pristine\u2019 ecological restoration site.<\/p>\n * * *<\/p>\n Through these visits, we can see the crucial connection between the need for unplanned space, the role for community stewards, and the ability for neighborhoods (people and places) to cope with change.\u00a0 Thus, stewardship can be understood as a mechanism for cultivating social-ecological resilience<\/span><\/a>. \u00a0While there are many forms of community stewardship in\u00a0community gardens, street trees, waterways, and vacant lots\u2014we know that these living memorials are special and even sacred places.\u00a0 They are imbued with the memories and intentions of their creators who sought to set aside land for remembrance, healing, and community cohesion.<\/p>\n One issue to explore in our ongoing longitudinal research is whether this persistence and adaptability is a broad-based trend.\u00a0 It is entirely possible that the need for and meaning of some sites is temporary and short-lived.\u00a0 Thus far, our investigations have found the opposite.\u00a0 Instead, we found a dedicated cadre of neighbors and friends keeping vigil in a waterfront park in Queens and a forest growing across the river from the former World Trade Center site.\u00a0 Finally, a key question is whether and how this sense of deep attachment to place and people can be cultivated, expressed, and celebrated outside of the context of disturbance and tragedy? \u00a0 What can we take from the horribly singular experience of 9\/11 that translates to how we care for the land and its people every day?\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n Lindsay K. Campbell <\/strong>and Erika S. Svendsen<\/strong>![\"The](\"http:\/\/www.thenatureofcities.com\/TNOC\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/LMP-national-map-630x379.jpg\")
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\nNew York City<\/p>\n
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