Fire Dept. Memorial May Get a Make-Over
The New York Fire Department said it will consider other designs for a Sept. 11 memorial after being criticized for its first choice--a statue based on a photograph of three firefighters raising a U.S. flag whose ethnicities were altered.
The property-management company that owns the Fire Department headquarters building in Brooklyn had already commissioned the work inspired by the photograph.
The bronze, 19-foot statue cost $180,000 and was to be erected this spring.
The three men in the photograph are white. The statue depicts firefighters who are black, white and Latino.
Firefighters called the statue political correctness run amok and an attempt to rewrite history.
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