Learn more about this Sculpture
The first sculpture of the Project 911up series was placed on September 11, 2011, in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. This sculpture is dedicated to local resident John Krapf and the entire Lehigh Valley, as a coming home piece. All the aggregate stone and sand used to mix the concrete for the slurry wall at the World Trade Center originated there. John Krapf, along with Rich Parrish had the foresight to save a few of the cut-out sections of the slurry wall that had to be removed to bring in the new PATH subway station. Richs’ company, Impact Environmental, was responsible for removing the cut-out sections of the wall to dispose of them out of state. This is the first of 17 of those salvaged pieces that started the Project 911UP memorial series. Rich Parrish was the CEO of the company removing over 100 pieces of the wall. John Krapf saved these 17 pieces on his land in Pennsylvania and was the one selected to call an artist to sculpt them. Unfortunately, John passed away before he could do this. Rich Parrish took up the torch, researching concrete and steel artists.
Low and behold, Sandra Priest was chosen as the artist for this first sculpture and given the entire project in return. San designed this sculpture with binary code all around. The ‘head’ has binary code for NY, NY where American airlines flight 11 United airlines flight 75 met their demise into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center. Then on the top of the ‘arms’ of this sculpture, San has engraved binary code on one side for PA where United airlines flight 93 crashed into the ground in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. The other arm has DC engraved for the Pentagon plane crash of American airlines flight 77. The Pentagon is physically in Arlington, VA but has 6 zip codes for DC. There is one for each of the 4 military branches, one for the Joint Chiefs of Staff and one for the Defense Secretary.
Since this sculpture has been set up next to City Hall, in Bethlehem, PA, San visits this every year, to check up on its condition and to speak to the citizens who happen to walk by. Some recognize her right away for the Bethlehem library is next door and they have a large display board of photos when the installation happened in 2011 of San, the Mayor at that time, John Callahan, Rich Parrish and Kay Krapf. Sometimes, San is approached by people walking by that come up to her and start to tell her about this sculpture called Victorii Rebuild, and just how proud they are of it being placed in their town. She has heard many individual stories of how they bring their own guests to see this and just how important it is to them to talk about 9/11 and how it impacted their own lives. Kay Krapf and her own family live just minutes away from this site and often visit the Victorii Rebuild sculpture to check up on it to make sure it is safe and displayed properly. The gratitude of this memorial to this town and its people is most important because the sand and stone used in the concrete making of the actual slurry foundation wall poured at the World Trade Center, came from the Lehigh Valley area surrounding Bethlehem. Some of the workers from the various stone and sand companies are still working there from the time the wall was poured.