Work to start on Pentagon 9/11 Memorial

Work to start on Pentagon 9/11 memorial

BY PAUL D. COLFORDDAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

As New Yorkers await the final design of the World Trade Center Memorial, the Pentagon's 9/11 tribute is set for its groundbreaking.

The ceremony is planned for Thursday on the Pentagon's west lawn, where a memorial park will honor the 184 killed when hijacked Flight 77 slammed into a nearby section of the military complex.

"This groundbreaking is a very huge event for us," said Pentagon Memorial Fund President James Laychak, who lost his brother Dave, an Army budget analyst.

"This will show people the memorial is real and that we're making significant progress," he added.

Compared with the New York effort, plagued by controversy over its soaring cost and underground features, the much smaller Pentagon memorial seems like a work of military precision.

"The Pentagon memorial has had none of this rancor," said Debra Burlingame, an outspoken member of the WTC Memorial Foundation board whose brother was the pilot of Flight 77.
But, as Burlingame noted, the Pentagon memorial will use a grassy area controlled by the Defense Department, while the WTC site is complicated by transit needs, commercial construction and the oversight of multiple agencies.

The Pentagon Memorial Fund, formed by family members in 2003, has so far raised nearly half the $22 million needed for construction.

That's a fraction of the $500 million budget Gov. Pataki and Mayor Bloomberg imposed on the WTC Memorial after an estimate came in at $972 million.

The two leaders are expecting final design recommendations from new construction czar Frank Sciame this week.

The Pentagon memorial will feature 184 steel benches set over reflecting pools and shaded by maple trees. Completion of the 2-acre project is set for fall 2008, a year ahead of the WTC Memorial.

In rural Shanksville, Pa., where hijacked Flight 93 went down after passengers stormed the cockpit, a $58 million national park and memorial, to be built with government and private funds, will encompass some 2,000 acres.