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Bay Nursery Lands Plot In 9/11 Memorial
March 11, 2002
YVETTE C. HAMMETTyhammett@tampatrib.com
EMERALD HILL PLANTS PICKED FOR LANDSCAPING PLANT CITY - Truckloads of plants from a local nursery will be used to landscape one of two temporary memorials to the victims of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Foliage from Emerald Hill Nursery in Plant City also will be used in other gardens around New York City's World Financial Center, said international landscape designer Ping Panlilio. He holds the multimillion-dollar landscape contract for the office complex near the World Trade Center site, which houses American Express and Merrill Lynch, among other large corporations. Most of the landscaping in the financial district was ruined as a result of the World Trade Center attacks, when tons of ash covered the area. The five-year contract Panlilio has with the World Financial Center requires the highest quality material, he said, adding that the quality of the plants at the Emerald Hill Nursery is what prompted him to use them for this important project. "I buy my plants all over the country, but what I look for is clean material that is standard in sizing, and I found that at Emerald Hill." He recently flew to Florida to inspect and photograph the Plant City nursery. He likened the local operation to the much larger and well-respected Monrovia and Hines nurseries in California, which he also uses. For Emerald Hill owners Jim and Pat Haggard, working with Panlilio on this particular project has dual importance. "It speaks directly to our quality," Jim Haggard said, standing next to rows of boxwoods like the ones going to New York City at the end of April. The garden won't be replanted until early May to avoid late-season freezes. "For me," Pat Haggard said, "it was like sending something home, becoming part of the effort." Pat Haggard is originally from New York, and most of her family still lives there. "I couldn't wait to call and tell them." Part of Panlilio's work will be to redo a 2- to 3-acre oval garden, located just behind the financial center, which he originally designed. The Lower Manhattan Development Corp., charged with designing a permanent memorial for ground zero, has designated the garden in Battery Park City as the site for one of two temporary memorials to those who died in the terrorist attacks. Victims' families also signed off on the site. Panlilio said the memorial garden's centerpiece will be a damaged, 45,000-pound steel and bronze spherical sculpture that once stood at the center of a fountain in the World Trade Center plaza. The sculpture suffered a huge gash during the attacks and is stored in a hangar at John F. Kennedy International Airport. The sphere is expected to remain in the garden for three years. A second temporary memorial will include two 50-foot-square groupings of lights shining up from ground zero from dusk until 11 p.m. beginning today, the six-month anniversary of the attacks. Matthew Monahan, spokesman for the New York City Department of Design and Construction, said the World Trade Center site still is considered a crime scene, as workers continue to look for evidence and excavate bodies. Just Wednesday, workers at the 16-acre ground zero site unearthed the bodies of two of the 23 New York City police officers lost in the tragedy. Meanwhile, the Lower Manhattan Development Corp. is considering a number of ideas for a permanent memorial at ground zero, Monahan said.
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