Local sculptor pays tribute to 9/11

By Steven Gnagni
Managing Editor

Jad Z. Mayorga has only been living in Highbridge for two years, but he’s already changing its landscape. His tribute to the people lost in the September 11 terror attacks now stands high in the Taqwa Farm community garden at the corner of Ogden Avenue and 164th Street.

The sculpture is made of wood, and stand about 20 feet high. One of the pieces of the sculpture is the roman numeral for nine, “IX,” and the other is the roman numeral for eleven, “XI.” They are set off on a diagonal, to reflect the positioning of the twin towers.

One of the interesting things about the sculpture is that no matter what direction you are facing, viewing it, you always see the nine and the eleven.

“I saw the symmetry,” Mr. Mayorga said while taking a break from sanding. “Three days after, I made a black and white postcard of it.”

At that point, he realized he wanted to see his artwork in three dimensions and be able to walk around it. So he spoke with one of the caretakers at the Taqwa Farm.

“I said, ‘This would be a nice contrast,’” he explained. “And the wood itself draws you—you want to touch it.”

Mr. Mayorga, who is 38 years old and works at Montefiore Hospital as an escort and translator, started working on the work three weeks before the one year anniversary of the attacks, with the intention of mounting the two pieces before September 11. But it took more work than expected and the weather interfered. So he turned to his unique sense of symmetry and started shooting for an opening date of November 9, or 11/9, the reverse of 9/11.

The sculpture, made of plywood with the help of two friends, was finished during the last week of October. He paid for all of the materials himself, and had help from three friends, Bobby McIntyre, Manny Nieves, and Vicente Gonzalez.

“I don’t have the time for fundraising,” he said. “I’m too busy doing the work. But I would appreciate any help.”

It’s clear that Mr. Mayorga is not in art for the money, at least not with his tribute piece.

“If somebody came to buy this, I wouldn’t want to sell it,” he explained. “But I would try to convince that person to collaborate, and to make something greater than this.”

Mr. Mayorga, who lives and works in a house on Woodycrest that overlooks the Taqwa Farm, hopes to one day take the project to its next level and change many more landscapes. He wants to design one sculpture for each borough using different materials.

“For the Bronx, I’ll use Bronze,” he said. “For Queens and Brooklyn, I want to use stone—a marble mix. For Staten Island, steel, and Manhattan, glass.”

Mr. Mayorga is currently finishing a fine arts degree and hopes to study architecture next. In the meantime, he is working on designs for a firehouse in Tribeca and he also has his own company, Spacial Conceptions.

“I call myself a spacialist,” he said. “It’s a mix between architecture and art. I use both, and I try to produce new forms and new experiences.”

In the end, Mr. Mayorga seems happy just making people in the neighborhood look at his work and think twice.

“People have been passing by, and they have a face of ‘What the hell is that?” he said. “I enjoy seeing their reactions.”