Ground Zero 9/11 Victims Demand Sphere Should Remain

NEW YORK—Michael Burke, a 9/11 victim’s family member, started an online petition as an effort to keep the World Trade Center Sphere at Ground Zero.

Visitors walk in heavy snow past 'The Sphere,' a sculpture by German architect Fritz Koenig, which survived the fatal terrorist attacks on 9/11 in Battery Park in lower Manhattan, in New York City. Mandel NGAN/Getty Images

NEW YORK—Michael Burke, a 9/11 victim’s family member, started an online petition as an effort to keep the World Trade Center Sphere at Ground Zero. A sculpture by German architect Fritz Koenig, the sphere survived the fatal terrorist attacks with damages in September, 2001. Recently, designers of The National September 11 Memorial & Museum decided it should be removed from Ground Zero. The sphere is currently on display in Battery Park. “This is a denial of history. It is an affront against the American spirit that triumphed 9/11; it is an assault upon truth and memory. It betrays the memory of the innocents slaughtered there,” wrote Burke, whose brother Fire Department Capt. William F. Burke Jr. died in 9/11, in the petition to New York City Mayor Bloomberg. As of 12:40 p.m. Friday, March 4, the online petition has generated more than 2,870 signatures. Mayor Bloomberg is currently serving as the president of the The National September 11 Memorial & Museum at the World Trade Center Foundation. In a message he sent, the mayor described building the memorial as so important that “there is not a more noble task.” The memorial is set to open on Sept. 11, 2011, the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, while the museum will be opened for the public in September, 2012.