By Joey Scarborough and Irving Dejohn New York Daily News
London Mayor Boris Johnson unveiled the sculpture in Battersea Park in 2011. Akira Suemori/AP
A sculpture fashioned from wreckage of the twin towers — given to the United Kingdom for a public memorial — is languishing in a warehouse.
The 28-foot-tall steel structure, made by New York artist Miya Ando, was intended to honor the 67 British citizens who died during the attacks.
Instead, the installation “After 9/11” has been tied up in red tape since its unveiling just before the 10th anniversary of the tragedy in 2011 — and new photos published by The Sun show it wasting away in a Cambridgeshire, England, farmyard. The steel structure has since been moved to a storage facility in North West London — but the memorial’s mishandling has sparked outrage from both sides of the pond with the 12th anniversary approaching on Wednesday.
“In my mind, this was something that was meant to honor the victims and the families,” Ando said Sunday at her Manhattan apartment. “It’s really unfortunate that the sculpture has been stored.
“When I saw this image I was deeply, deeply saddened,” she said of the photo in The Sun.
The sculpture was unveiled by London Mayor Boris Johnson in Battersea Park with much fanfare. But it was not allowed to remain there — officials from the London Borough of Wandsworth said it only had a license for 28 days, according to the Independent newspaper.
Since then, finding a permanent home has proved difficult, a source told The Sun.
Peter Rosengard, the founder of the 9/11 London Project who raised $400,000 to commission the sculpture, said the poignant piece should be in the public eye. “It’s an insult to those who died,” Rosengard told The Sun.
