Memorial design contestants to tour Flight 93 site

The first stage of the competition runs through the end of this year.
PITTSBURGH (AP) -- Participants in the United Flight 93 memorial design competition soon will be able to survey sections of the memorial site -- 2,200 acres that include the spot where the plane crashed nearly three years ago.
Planners of a national memorial for the plane's 40 passengers and crew will launch an international design competition with news conferences Wednesday in New York and Sept. 11 in Shanksville, about 65 miles southeast of Pittsburgh.
During the first stage of the competition, which runs through the end of the year, professional designers, as well as novices, can submit their concepts, said competition adviser Helene Fried.
Twice during the first stage, in October and November, competition coordinators will lead competitors through an escorted tour within the memorial's newly established boundaries. The tours will be some of the first times people besides law enforcement and memorial planners can survey the land, Fried said.
Necessary for design
Seeing the reclaimed strip mine with its rolling hills, vast sky and wooded terrain is necessary in the design process, Fried said. Competition coordinators will supply video footage to those who can't visit, she said.
It's hard to say how many groups and individuals will participate in the design competition, she said.
About 5,200 groups from around the world submitted proposals for a memorial to the victims of the World Trade Center attack. The competition to design a memorial for the victims of the attack at the Pentagon attracted more than 1,100 entries.
A jury of design professionals, victims' families and others will select a small group of finalists who will move onto the second stage. A recommended design must be submitted to the Secretary of the Interior and Congress by September 2005.
A news conference will be at the Municipal Art Society in New York because so many arts and design publications are based there, Fried said.
The news conference in Shanksville, scheduled about an hour after a morning memorial service at the crash site's temporary memorial, will include escorted media tours of the memorial site.
Flight 93 was the only one of four planes hijacked Sept. 11, 2001, that did not take a life on the ground. It was en route from Newark, N.J., to San Francisco when it crashed.
Soon after the plane crashed, residents established a temporary memorial on a hilltop overlooking the crash site, where thousands of people continue to visit every week.
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