Help Save the 9/11 Tribute Park Mosaic

By Katie McFadden

Shortly after 9/11 rocked the world in 2001, in artist Patrick Clark’s stained glass studio in Rockaway Beach, about 10 family members of victims killed in the World Trade Center attack—mothers, wives, husbands, children, uncles—gathered around a table and gently brushed the ash remains off of stone and granite fragments collected by a firefighter from the rubble at Ground Zero. “We put up a table with plastic over it and put the stone out and had brushes, and we brushed the ash, almost ceremoniously, off of it,” Clark explained. The stone and granite pieces became part of the base for what would become Tribute Park’s central art piece, the Navigator Star mosaic. The piece also contained 47,000 pieces of carefully cut glass that Clark and his crew put together to form the star that would point to where the World Trade Center once stood, the border featuring the names of 10 Rockaway neighborhoods where victims had lived, and a central quote saying “We Will Never Forget our Loved Ones who died in the World Trade Center and our Heroes who sought to save them September 11, 2001. Rockaway will always remember.” When the piece was finished and installed around 2005, those family members gathered around the mosaic and carefully poured out the ash that was collected from the stones into the flowers surrounding the completed piece.

“It’s a very special piece,” Clark said. “The most special thing is that Rockaway is like no other community in New York. We lost so many, and we have this sense of community from Breezy Point to Belle Harbor to Far Rockaway, where 9/11 meant so much to us and still does. We are reminded at this point, almost 25 years later, that it’s about remembering and keeping the love alive and showing children and grandchildren how important this was and that it was a symbol as a community of our love and devotion to each other,” Clark said.

Tribute Park, a project funded through the community, opened in 2005, as a memorial to those Rockaway lost on 9/11, and the mosaic has served as the central piece in which community members and 9/11 families place roses on each anniversary, for the more than 70 neighbors who died that day almost 25 years ago.

For the past few years, the mosaic has been covered in tarp for the ceremony, due to years of deterioration, exacerbated by Tribute Park being inundated with salty floodwaters during Hurricane Sandy in 2012. It seemed the mosaic had been forgotten, as it and the park’s other art pieces, The Dome and Firefighter’s Rock, were left out of a major renovation of the park in 2019. By 2023, NYC Parks, which oversees the park, with the help of Friends of Tribute Park, recommended that the damaged mosaic simply be removed, and something else be put in its place. But Clark and the community were not going to let it be forgotten. In October 2023, at a packed Community Board 14 meeting, the Board overwhelmingly voted to restore the mosaic with more durable materials.

In a continued upward battle to get the restoration approved, in July 2025, with some push from the Mayor’s Office, the NYC Design Commission approved the restoration. And so began the mission of funding the project.

Once again, nearly 25 years later, the community’s help is needed to make it possible. Clark is spearheading a variety of ways for the community to contribute toward raising $150K for the restoration. “We’re putting it back. It’s going to look like the original, but it’s going to be reproduced better structurally. It will have to be sealed every year, and the new plan will be to maintain it, but we’re also using advanced cements and things so that even if we didn’t maintain it, it is completely different and will last for generations,” Clark explained. “The cement base will stay and needs to be restored, so the surface needs to be grinded and resealed and resurfaced, and the sides have to be cleaned and reconstructed. Then the main thing is the thousands of pieces of glass. When we start to cut the new pieces, it’s gonna take a crew of four professional craftsman glasscutters, four to five months full-time, and we’re going to have to hire freelancers for that. We’re not making a profit on this. It all goes toward reproducing this and covering the cost of the materials and labor.”

So there are three different ways to help support the fundraising effort. The first is a community fundraiser event next Friday, April 10, from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. at the Belle Harbor Yacht Club (533 Beach 126th Street). Tickets include a buffet dinner, open bar, live music by Greg and Cat Parr and raffles.

The second is a unique opportunity to visit the Richard Mott House at 72 Norton Drive, Clark’s home, which was just added to the National Register of Historic Places last month. Just 45 tickets are on sale for this event from 6 p.m. to 11 p.m. on June 6, which will include cocktails, fine wines, hors d’oeuvres and live music.

And finally, is a 50/50 raffle. Tickets are now on sale, and will be on sale at both events, for $100 each. It’s for a chance at a $25,000 grand prize or four $1,000 runner up prizes. Tickets for the 50/50 and for both fundraising events are available at: www.rockaways9-11tributepark.com. Those wishing to pay by check can do so at the fundraisers, but must RSVP.

Clark hopes the community will come together once again to save the mosaic. “This is all about never forgetting, and we think the mosaic and Tribute Park is Rockaway’s very special way of keeping all of those we lost in our hearts, and we need the community to really come out and help with this,” he said.

Clark hopes to be able to complete the restored mosaic in time for the 25th anniversary ceremony on September 11, but delays could push it back. “This is the 25th anniversary, and we wanted to have this in for the commemoration this year, which Friends of Tribute Park puts together the most exceptional 9/11 ceremony outside of the one at the actual site. We want to have it ready for that, we may or may not, but we’re going to be fabricating it and restoring it and reproducing it in the meantime,” Clark said.

And there may be an opportunity for the community to be a part of it, in addition to helping fundraise. “In May, we may have an open house at the shop and have people come and help spend the day cleaning old pieces to reuse, so they can have a hand in recreating the mosaic.”

But for now, funding the restoration is the most important piece. To be a part of saving the mosaic, find event and 50/50 tickets at  www.rockaways9-11tributepark.com