With the help of internationally-renowned artist and sculptor Steve Tobin, Trinity Church is undertaking plans to preserve and memorialize the stump and root system from the sycamore tree that protected the St. Paul’s churchyard from falling debris from the attack on the World Trade Center towers on September 11, 2001. Details of the project were announced in this press release from the artist on August 9, 2004.
Steve Tobin, the Bucks County, Pennsylvania sculptor who is perhaps best known for his bronze Roots sculptures, will be preserving and memorializing the stump and root system from the historic sycamore tree that shielded St. Paul’s Chapel and churchyard from falling debris from the attack on the World Trade Center across the street from the Church on September 11, 2001. Tobin is creating a bronze memorial sculpture using the tree stump and its roots removed from the chapel's churchyard on August 11.
St. Paul’s Chapel became the venue of an eight-month ministry to Ground Zero after the attack on 9/11. The chapel opened its doors to firemen, policemen and volunteers, providing meals, a place to sleep and a place to reflect following the WTC attack.
After carefully removing the artifact from the churchyard with the help of several of his studio assistants, Tobin is having it transported on a flatbed truck to his studio, where he will carry out the laborious process of creating the sculpture. When the sculpture is completed within the next several months, Tobin will present both the original artifact and the work of art to the church, where it will be exhibited. Tobin will work with tree experts and church officials to preserve the original artifact, which will survive intact after the artist removes the mold material that will be applied to turn it into a bronze sculpture.
Tobin’s Roots sculptures have previously been shown in New York City in a year-long exhibition along with several other works from his Earth Bronzes series at the American Museum of Natural History. The Roots and other sculptures were de-installed on September 10, 2001, before traveling to Los Angeles where they were shown for a year-and-a-half on the grounds of the Page Museum/La Brea Tar Pits and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
Other Tobin Roots sculptures can be seen in Chicago’s Lincoln Park; Laumeier Sculpture Park in St. Louis; in the Margolies Collection at Florida International University in Miami; and at College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor, Maine.
“Shortly after the events of 9/11, I saw the incredibly moving, inspiring story of how the sycamore tree fell upon impact from the fallen towers and protected the historic churchyard from damage,” said Tobin. “All that is now left of the tree is the stump and the roots, which fit into the language of my expression. The terrorists knocked down the buildings and uncovered the strength of our humanity in the roots of New York City, the United States and the world. We are all connected in the roots. I feel that this memorial recognizing the uplifting response to the disaster will be the most important sculpture of my career, and I am honored to be given this opportunity by my friends at Trinity Church.”
Tobin’s Roots sculptures measure as high as 15 feet and 25 feet in diameter, proving that there is as much in the roots below the ground as there is above. The artist and his studio assistants carefully excavate the stump and roots from dead trees in the woods of his studio compound in semi-rural Bucks County, and them make molds of the severed pieces. After the bronze pour, the mold is painstakingly removed and the root system is reassembled as a sculpture. Other works in Tobin’s Earth Bronzes series include his African Termite Hills, Forest Floors and Bone Walls.
“We are delighted that Steve Tobin, an artist whose work celebrates the majesty of nature, will create a sculpture that honors the enduring hope of all those who worked tirelessly in the aftermath of September 11, 2001,” said the Rev. Dr. James H. Cooper, rector of St. Paul’s Chapel and Trinity Church. “His expertise in preserving the remains of the original tree will also ensure that the thousands of visitors to St. Paul’s each week will continue to witness and reflect upon one of the city’s few surviving artifacts from that day.”
Posted on Trinity News on August 10, 2004
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