Patchogue Village is drawing up plans for a 9/11 memorial park fronting the Great South Bay.
The land for the park at 44 Maiden Lane was acquired by the village through the New York Rising program that saw several superstorm Sandy-damaged properties razed and deeded to the village.
Prior Coverage: Eight Sandy-damaged homes slated for demolition
“It will be a really nice to go and reflect,” said Patchogue’s special projects coordinator, Dennis Smith, during a briefing before the Village Board on Monday evening.
The plans, he explained, involve moving the current memorial at Shorefront Park (photo below) to the property at Maiden Lane and Cedar Avenue.
Shorefront, the village’s busiest park, is also expected to undergo an upgrade.
“Well take the 9/11 memorial out of Shorefront, because there’s going to be a lot going on in Shorefront, and we’ll replace it at Maiden Lane,” Smith explained. “We will make that a passive memorial park, complete with landscaping, flag pole, benches shrubbery.”
“It almost gets lost in Shorefront,” Trustee Lori Devlin said of the existing memorial, which is to the west of the playground and putting greens.
That memorial consists of shrubby and two boulders and two benches dedicated to the memories of 9/11 terror victims Eric Adam Stahlman and Alfred Russell Maler. Both worked for Cantor Fitzgerald and lived in Patchogue.
“I think this is going to be a great project, and one we’re going to start sooner rather than later; as soon as we get all the plans in place,” Smith said.
Top: The property at 44 Maiden Lane is just west of several bayfront homes.
