Memorial Wall
Owner Public Memorial Established 2015
Purpose Mourning
Status 24 hours, daily

What began, during the onset of the civil war, as a site of missing persons flyers soon swelled into a sprawling memorial for the dead and forgotten. Starting in 2011, local residents of then Jamaica Bay banded together to create a public space to mark those missing in the November 8, 2011 riots. As the riots swelled and more and more people disappeared, the wall's photographs and memorials grew. Soon, the dockside wall came to encompass the entire pier space. As riots turned to civil war and residents fled Manhattan, the memorial wall became a popular gathering space for Brooklyn residents looking to reconnect with lost family members and friends, or for those looking to mourn their passing. Eventually, the area became too dangerous, and the wall was abandoned when Brooklyn was.

When the Safe Zone was founded, the memorial wall was discovered to have largely survived the passage of time. Workers and Safe Zone residents have rebuilt damaged portions of the wall and continued adding photographs of missing and deceased. Candlelight vigils are held annually on anniversaries of the riots and the war's conclusion in addition to smaller personal memorial ceremonies. Photographs of civil war heroes lost in the fighting were added to the wall in 2016, and in late 2016 a Virginia senator commissioned a statue of Emile Danko commemorated as a war hero to be placed on the memorial grounds. The statue was constructed and set up on the night of September 7th, 2016. Vandals eventually tore the statue from its pedestal and dragged it into the harbor, where it now sits half submerged and headless in the marshland surrounding the harbor.

The memorial wall is a four-hundred foot long span of boardwalk following the pylons of a taller pier set along the coast of Ferrymen's bay at the end of W 18th Road off of Cross Bay Blvd. The makeshift wall, once used for community notices, covers this span and is adorned with thousands of photographs, keepsakes, and other memorial items. Candles, flowers, and notes are often left at the base of the wall.

Memorial Wall

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