A memorial hall is placed underneath a wide grassy ramp which would connect the streets surrounding the memorial to the memorial precinct.  Rising from the hall through the ramp a 100 foot high torqued steel structure, incorporating surviving fragments of the World Trade Center would create a gateway to the site.  The hall below would be lit through the spiraling columns of the monument, which would frame the sky.

Located on one side of the hall would be a 27 foot high wall of names with a continuous stone ledge at its base, where the names of the dead would be alphabetically displayed.  When traced by fingers, the name would illuminate slowly in the wall of names above and would stay illuminated for a few minutes before slowly fading.  The effect of the wall would be to create a constantly changing arrangement of illuminated names, like thoughts, appearing and dissolving.

Adjacent to the hall and accessible from it would be a broad walk surrounding a pool at the South Tower footprint filled with the images of those who died.  The extraordinary ethnic diversity of the more than three thousand dead of 92 countries would merge into a universal sea, representative both of New York and the world.

On the North footprint the ground would rise slightly and be laid out as a grassy park, dedicated to the life of future generations.  An extension of the grass ramp, it would become an integral part of the city and would balance the South footprint, in the belief that affirmation of life must be the essence of a memorial to the dead.