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The Sonic Memorial Project
Radio Stories and Audio Artifacts from the History of the WTC
 Sept. 10, 2002 -- A September Story
 Hear all the reports in the Sonic Memorial Project series.
The Sonic Memorial Project and NPR present a collection of radio stories and sound chronicling the life and history of the World Trade Center and its neighborhood.
The Sonic Memorial Project began in October 2001 when Lost & Found Sound and NPR opened a phone line for listeners to call in with their stories and audio artifacts relating to the Sept. 11 attacks and the history of the World Trade Center. Hundreds of you called with your testimonies and remembrances, music and small shards of sounds.
Combining interviews, voice-mail messages, audio contributions from listeners, oral histories, home videos and recorded sounds of all kinds, the Sonic Memorial Project team created a series of stories for broadcast on NPR's All Things Considered.
Now, these stories and contributions from listeners across the country can be heard at SonicMemorial.org. We encourage you to visit the site -- explore the archive, contribute your own sounds and stories, and immerse yourself in the Sonic Browser, an interactive soundscape of stories and audio fragments.
The Sonic Memorial Project is a national collaboration of independent radio producers, artists, musicians, journalists, archivists, historians and public broadcasters. Led by executive producers The Kitchen Sisters (Davia Nelson and Nikki Silva), the team includes NPR, Picture Projects, WNYC, Jim McKee and Earwax Productions, Radio Diaries, transom.org, Ben Shapiro Productions, emerging producers Jamie York, Elinoar Astrinsky, ABC News, Sound Portraits, Creative Time, MPR/Public Radio Collaboration KQED, The Museum of Television and Radio and The Smithsonian Institution.
Major funding for the Sonic Memorial Project has been provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the National Endowment for the Arts, with additional support by the Ford Foundation, the New York State Council on the Arts, California Council for the Arts and the Kitchen Sisters Productions/Sonic Memorial Fund.
Special thanks to: Julie Sweeny, Beverly Eckert, Jill Gartenberg, The Family of Chris Pickford, John Schaefer and New Sounds at WNYC , Joe Richman and Radio Diaries, Jay Allison and Vikki Merrick, Caryn Havlik, Tara Anderson and WFUV, Tim Folger, Nikki Stern, Christal Smith and KPPC, Francisco Lopez, Andy Lanset, Kathy Brew, Ellen Lewis, Romolo del Deo, Guy Tozzoli, Steve Zeitlin and City Lore, Ruxandra Guidi, Daren Commons, Grace Kee Heifetz, Picture Projects, dotsperinch, the New York Historical Society, Angus Kress Gillespie, Josh Pryor, KQED, Art Silverman, Carl Scorza, Elana Berkowitz, Manoli Wetherell, Jad Abumrad and all those who participated in the Sonic Memorial Project collaboration.
Stories in the Sonic Memorial Project series:
Sept. 10, 2002 -- A September Story
We set up a phone line, and hundreds of you left your testimony and remembrances, poems, music, on-site recordings, small shards of sound. From this collection, and from dozens of interviews done by producers across the nation, the Sonic Memorial Project has created "A September Story," an intimate and historic radio documentary marking the anniversary of 9/11.
July 29, 2002 -- The Building Stewardesses
As construction commenced on the largest building project since the Pyramids, questions and controversies swirled around Lower Manhattan. Guy Tozzoli, the Port Authority visionary behind the building of the Twin Towers, had an inspiration: "construction guides" -- friendly young women in mini-skirted uniforms, posted at corner kiosks on the site to inform an inquiring public and put a pretty face on a controversial issue.
July 1, 2002 -- Walking High Steel
Six generations of Mohawk Indian ironworkers, known for their ability to work high steel, have helped shape New York City's skyline. Hundreds of Mohawks still commute to Manhattan each week from reservations in Canada to work on the city's skyscrapers and bridges. In September 2001, a new generation returned to the WTC site to dismantle what their elders had helped to build.
June 3, 2002 -- Radio Row
The six-square-block area in lower Manhattan known as Radio Row was once the largest collection of radio and electronics stores in the world. In l965, the store owners received eviction notices -- their neighborhood was to be bulldozed to make way for a new development, the World Trade Center.
Feb. 14, 2002 -- Love and Marriage at the WTC
Some of the most surprising messages left on the Sonic Memorial Project hotline have been the many tales of love and marriage that took place atop the World Trade Center. Interfaith marriages, interracial marriages, priests, rabbis, caterers -- nearly 30 years of stories about love, family and the Twin Towers are contained in these recorded rituals.
Feb. 4, 2002 -- Messages from the Sonic Memorial Project
Hundreds of listeners have called NPR's Sonic Memorial Project hotline in response to Lost & Found Sound's request for audio and stories relating to the life and history of the World Trade Center. This first sampling includes audio ranging from memories of the WTC by the piano bar player at Windows on the World, to sightseers, business workers, steel workers, firemen, artists, songwriters and many others.
Other Resources
• Sonic Memorial Project
• Lost & Found Sound
• Radio Diaries
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