Photo credit: 9/11 Memorial staff
Accession Number: C.2015.57.6
Dimensions: 20 in X 8.5 in X 0.5 in
Dimensions (Metric): 50.8 cm X 21.59 cm X 1.27 cm
Dimensions (Metric): 50.8 cm X 21.59 cm X 1.27 cm
Credit Line: Collection 9/11 Memorial Museum, Transfer from the New-York Historical Society
Description
Tribute sign with a faded image of the flag of Mexico printed on a piece of paper. Below the flag is a bright green piece of paper with handwritten text that reads: “In memory of the delivery boys who died | En memoria de los delivery boys que murieron | Sep 11 2001." An image of the Virgin Mary is attached in the lower left. The sign is taped together with pieces of clear, heavily soiled packing tape.
Tribute sign with a faded image of the flag of Mexico printed on a piece of paper. Below the flag is a bright green piece of paper with handwritten text that reads: “In memory of the delivery boys who died | En memoria de los delivery boys que murieron | Sep 11 2001." An image of the Virgin Mary is attached in the lower left. The sign is taped together with pieces of clear, heavily soiled packing tape.
Historical Notes
Locked to a street sign on Broadway near Cedar Street, a block from the World Trade Center, an abandoned bicycle soon became an impromptu shrine to the messengers and delivery persons presumed to have been killed at the World Trade Center. Flowers, coins, notes, religious items, and this sign were left at the memorial in the months that followed.
Locked to a street sign on Broadway near Cedar Street, a block from the World Trade Center, an abandoned bicycle soon became an impromptu shrine to the messengers and delivery persons presumed to have been killed at the World Trade Center. Flowers, coins, notes, religious items, and this sign were left at the memorial in the months that followed.
Curator's Comment
The abandoned messenger bike shrine quickly came to symbolize the unknown nature of loss following 9/11. According to Michael Raisch, a former Rutgers University art student who documented the bike through sketches and photographs several times, it was suggested that the bike belonged to an immigrant delivery messenger on a breakfast sandwich order who never returned from the Twin Towers. Over time, accounting for the full scale of September 11th victims became complicated by issues of citizenship or worker status. The unknown nature of the messenger bike shrine forces viewers to think about the complexity and diversity of people killed that day.
HIDE
The abandoned messenger bike shrine quickly came to symbolize the unknown nature of loss following 9/11. According to Michael Raisch, a former Rutgers University art student who documented the bike through sketches and photographs several times, it was suggested that the bike belonged to an immigrant delivery messenger on a breakfast sandwich order who never returned from the Twin Towers. Over time, accounting for the full scale of September 11th victims became complicated by issues of citizenship or worker status. The unknown nature of the messenger bike shrine forces viewers to think about the complexity and diversity of people killed that day.
HIDE
