NEW YORK (WCBS 880) — Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Wednesday provided more details on the memorial in Battery Park that will soon be erected to honor essential workers who helped New York through the pandemic.
During an afternoon press conference, the governor said the memorial will honor both the survivors and the fallen.
“New York City is going to open the ‘Circle of Heroes Monument to Essential Workers,’” Cuomo said. “[The memorial] recognizes the individual responsibility and contribution of each group, but a circle representing that they were all connected, because it only works if all the pieces work.”
The monument was designed by the Essential Workers Advisory Committee, which was comprised of members from all essential workers categories – including police officers, firefighters, nurses, doctors, food service workers, grocery store employees and more.
The memorial will feature 19 Maple tress planted in a circle, surrounding an eternal flame.
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“In the middle of the circle will be an eternal flame that honors those that we lost during COVID,” Cuomo said. “The eternal flame says, ‘Your spirit is still alive in us and in our soul and we will never forget, and we are eternally grateful for what you did.’”
The “Circle of Heroes” will be built in Battery Park, near Warren Street, and will open to the public by Labor Day.
“It will be within view of the Statue of Liberty and New York Harbor – it will be right on the Hudson River. It will be beautiful – a beautiful location,” Cuomo said. “It will have an atmosphere of peace and contemplation, where people can come and remember those who were lost. People can remember this moment in time and what it represents. And it will be our way of saying, ‘Thank you.’”
The memorial will also feature a quote from renowned New York City journalist Jim Dwyer, who died of complications from lung cancer in October 2020.
The quote will read: “In times to come, when we are all gone, people not yet born will walk in the sunshine of their own days because of what women and men did at this hour to feed the sick, to heal and to comfort.”
Cuomo says he feels the quote “sums up what COVID was all about.”
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