How many of my NJ people have heard of the Tear Drop Monument? You know, the monument made and installed by the Russians, located on the waterfront in Bayonne, and dedicated on 9/11/2006, the 5th anniversary 9/11. None of you? That doesn't surprise me as I only found out about it yesterday. After shooting the tribute lights from Liberty State Park a couple of times already, I was looking on Google Maps for a location to get a fresh perspective on the lights. A perspective where I would be able to work the Statue of Liberty into the shot. That's when I found Tear Drop Monument. I did a quick Google search to learn more about the monument and found out that it is a 10 story sculpture by Zurab Tsereteli that was given to the United States as an official gift of the Russian government as a memorial to the victims of the September 11 attacks and the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. The real name of the sculpture is To the Struggle Against World Terrorism, but it is also known as the Tear of Grief and the Tear Drop Memorial. I knew that I would have to try to photograph the tribute lights from there.
I started off my night of shooting at Liberty State Park. Even though I have shot from there before, I never had the opportunity to try to work the Empty Sky Memorial into the shot as it had not yet been completed during my previous visits shooting the tribute lights. The Empty Sky Memorial is the official State of New Jersey's Memorial that honors the memory of 746 New Jersey lives lost at the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001. I never did find a way to work the monument into a shot that I was happy with. There were numerous other photographers set up with tripods taking photos of the memorial, and this limited the places I could shoot from as I didn't want to get into their shots. I probably only took 2 photos that included the memorial. I decided to take some of my "normal" shots of the lights just to get some in. Although I was trying to be more creative this time around, I would've been upset with myself if I didn't at least get one photo I could be happy about. Even if it was a from an angle I have shot before and nothing new creatively, at least it would have the completed WTC1 tower in the photo.
I wrapped up shooting at Liberty State Park and decided to find Tear Drop Monument. At this point, I was not sure if it would be accessible at this time of night (it was 10:45pm by that time), but I decided to give it a shot. Luckily, access to the monument was still open and the monument was lit up. Unfortunately, I did not have the opportunity to work the monument into a shot with the tribute lights in the background before the lights lighting up the monument were turned off. I did manage to take a couple of photos of the monument itself while it was lit up, but my priority at the time was to photograph the tribute lights with the Statue of Liberty in the photo. That was my whole point of going there in the first place. So did I get my shot? And was I happy with it? I think so, but I haven't had the opportunity yet to download my photos and view them on a big screen.
However the photos turn out, I will definitely return to Tear Drop Monument to actually visit the monument and "take it in". I would definitely like to take more photos of the monument, both during the day and the night, and I will most definitely be returning to the monument during next year's Tribute in Light.
If you'd like to, you can read more about Tear Drop Momument on snopes.com (Snopes.com article on Tear Drop Monument) or at www.911monument.com.
Romel
UPDATE - 9/13/2013 - Photos added.