A Ground Zero Shrine for 9/11 Families Brings Forth Its Stories

ALBANY, N.Y. Twenty stories above ground zero, its existence and whereabouts known only to those who needed it, the Family Room served for a dozen years as a most private sanctuary from a most public horror.

It was spartan office space at a 54-story tower at 1 Liberty Plaza for families to be by themselves, a temporary haven where they could find respite from bad weather and the curious stares of passers-by. Piece by piece, without any planning, it was transformed into an elaborate shrine known only to them.

Unconstrained and undesigned, a profusion of intimate expressions of love and loss filled the walls of the room, the tabletops, the floors and, even, the windows, obscuring views of the World Trade Center site below, as if to say: Jim and John and Jonathan and Harvey and Gary and Jean and Welles and Isaias and Katherine and Christian and Judy are all here, with us, not down there in the ruins.

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What tower? What floor? That was the way other people saw our loved ones, said Nikki Stern, whose husband, James E. Potorti, was among those killed on Sept. 11, 2001. It was adamantly not how we wanted to define our loved ones. The Family Room was the beginning of the storytelling that was controlled by the families.

And it was that rare thing at ground zero, a secret refuge hidden in plain sight of the workers, shoppers, neighbors and visitors who streamed past the building every day. It was not meant to be a public memorial and was little known until today.

This week, 150 miles north of ground zero, the Family Room with its thousand stories of love and loss has opened to the public for the first time, in an exhibition at the New York State Museum in Albany. The display speaks of the personal communion between the victims relatives and those who were killed 13 years ago, when terrorists took down the twin towers.

The Family Room opened in April 2002 in space donated by Brookfield Office Properties, the owners of 1 Liberty Plaza, across Church Street from the trade center site. By presenting what was known as a medical examiners family identification card, victims relatives were admitted during regular workdays and at night, on weekends and on holidays.

On the 20th floor, behind a door marked The Family Room, relatives could settle into ample leather couches or stand at windows 15 and 20 feet wide. The room was intended for quiet contemplation, said a 2002 notice from the Lower Manhattan Development Corp., which created and maintained the space, just a few doors down from its own headquarters and those of the National September 11 Memorial & Museum at the World Trade Center Foundation.

A childrens play area was provided, as were boxes of tissues. Photos, poems, cards, artwork and personal effects from the first family viewing area, an outdoor platform at Liberty and West Streets, were brought indoors.

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A Ground Zero Shrine for 9/11 Families Brings Forth Its Stories