By Brittany Lyte Greenwich Real Time
The 9/11 memorial at Great Captains Island has been plagued by many things.
Delays due to lighthouse renovations. Debate over which names to include. Inaccessibility during the nine months of the year that the town ferry is out of service.
Add another dilemma to the list: misspellings.
The bronze plaque inscribed with the names of the 26 people with ties to Greenwich who died in the attacks on September 11 includes a misspelling of the name of one of the victims.
Mary Ann Morrison, a former Chamber of Commerce executive director who played a leading role in instituting the memorial, wouldn’t say which victim’s name is misspelled. But she offered this clue: “It’s an issue of a double consonant.”
Morrison said a new plaque will soon replace the current one with the misspelling.
The memorial at Great Captains Island was dedicated in 2010, a full nine years after the attacks. Its late realization was delayed by lighthouse renovations and an initial plan to only include the names of town residents. Town leaders eventually decided to include the 12 resident victims as well as 14 other people with ties to Greenwich.
Now a community group backed by victims’ families is close to winning the necessary approvals to construct a second memorial.
The Greenwich Community Projects Fund has committed to raising three quarters of a million dollars for a new memorial overlooking the Mianus River at what will be the new Cos Cob Power Plant Park. The project was born out of concerns from victims’ families that the island-bound memorial is too remote. Backers of the project say the town should have a memorial that’s accessible 365 days a year.
