Floodwall

As I worked my way around the World Trade Center site I came across the “Floodwall” installation located in the Liberty Street Bridge at the World Financial Center. It features 610 drawers from New Orleans neighborhoods flooded by Hurricane Katrina. The drawers were collected by artist Jana Napoli, who arranged them into a “floodwall” along side of the bridge which parallels the Ground Zero site. It’s a stunning juxtaposition between the two tragedies, one man-made and one natural.

In this site-specific installation, the drawers sit upright along a 230 foot long platform, which spans the length of Liberty Street Bridge – standing like empty luggage without their passengers and flowing like a levee, broken in places. Beneath the drawers, placed in intervals along the platform, moving-message LED signs silently repeat the words of the people who have parted with these drawers.