The Healing Field observed from the Mill Avenue Bridge, Tempe, Ariz.
The view from the Mill Avenue Bridge looking down on the Healing Field in Tempe Beach Park brings home the enormity of the human loss suffered on 9/11. The field contains a total of 2, 977, 8-foot tall American flags for each person who died on 9/11.
Tempe Beach Park hosts the 8th Annual Healing Field for the 10th anniversary of 9/11.
Volunteers put up the flags Friday, Sept. 9. The Healing Field remains open to the public through Sunday, Sept. 11 from 5 a.m. to 11 p.m. daily. Each flag contains a white card containing the victim’s name, age, location and a brief biography. Yellow ribbons designate first responders, blue ribbons represent flight crews on the airlines and teddy bears guard the flagpoles of the child victims.
A card and blue ribbon decorate the flagpole dedicated to Captain Charles Burlingame.
One card reads: “In Memory of Charles Burlingame; Age: 51; Location: AA Flight 77; Charles Burlingame, captain of American Airlines Flight 77, was a perfectionist. His attention to safety earned him the respect and admiration of his colleagues. Captain Burlingame’s most valued quality was his commitment to people. He personified the word classmate.”
Another card for first responder Leon Smith, age 48, says, “Leon Smith was the chauffeur-the driver for Ladder Company 118 in Brooklyn Heights. ‘He would wash his rig every single day, and when he went off duty he’d say, ‘Listen, my baby better be clean,’ Mrs. Smith said. ‘He called that his girlfriend.’”
Andrew H. Golkin, 30, worked in the World Trade Center. His bio reads, “‘He had a good heart, and was a good listener, which made him very good at his job,’ said Andrew Golkin’s mother, Janet, of her son’s work as vice president at Cantor Fitzgerald on the 105th floor of the World Trade Center. Only the Saturday night before the disaster, she and her husband, Gerald, and their daughter, Susan, had dinner with Andrew at their favorite neighborhood Italian restaurant, Parma, on the Upper East Side.”
A teddy bear guards the flagpole of 11-year-old victim, Rodney Dickens.
Teddy bears guard the flags designated for the youngest victims. Rodney Dickens, 11, perished on American Airlines Flight 77, and David Reed Gamboa Brandhorst, 3, died on United Airlines Flight 175.
Donated military boots decorate some of the Pentagon victims' flagpoles.
Attached to the base of many Pentagon victims’ flagpoles are military boots donated by veterans. The card on the boots donated for Daniel Martin Caballero, a 21-year-old U.S. Navy electronics technician third class, killed at the Pentagon reads, “Donated by B. Lee, U.S. Army, U.S. Marine Corps., U.S. Army/Army Reserves, Operation Iraqi Freedom, Operation Enduring Freedom.”
Tempe Beach Park gives visitors grassy areas to walk among the flags or paved areas to walk around them.
Tempe Beach Park makes the perfect place for this Healing Field with its wide walkways, benches and grassy areas. It gives visitors a chance to walk through the rows of flags and read about each victim, relax on benches or pedal bicycles along the wide walkways and absorb the magic of the scene.
Photos by Janice Semmel
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