The skyline of Uptown Charlotte will feature a striking visual tribute this week, as a soaring memorial installation projects beams of light high into the night sky to honor the thousands of lives lost during the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
Positioned in the heart of the city at Romare Bearden Park, the illuminated twin silhouettes replicate the towering presence of the fallen World Trade Center. The display is scheduled to shine continuously from dusk until dawn across Thursday and Friday nights, providing a luminous focal point for reflection and mourning across the region.
The structural foundation of the memorial relies on high-intensity lighting technology. Organizers have engineered each individual light tower using an array of 16 high-powered LED beams. Fired simultaneously, these 32 combined light fixtures shoot straight up into the night air to form clean, unmistakable vertical pillars representing the former twin skyscrapers.
Project organizers project that the intense light shafts will penetrate between one and two miles upward into the atmosphere. Because of the sheer strength and altitude of the installation, planners expect the twin silhouettes to be easily visible to observers positioned up to 25 miles away from Uptown Charlotte.
The memorial project was organized and spearheaded by the Steven Coakley Foundation. The charitable organization was established by the sister of Steven Coakley, a New York City firefighter who perished while performing rescue efforts at the World Trade Center site. Coakley’s sister, who now resides in Charlotte, created the foundation to preserve her late brother’s legacy.
To bring the ambitious vision into reality, the foundation partnered with local community advocates, including Charlotte business owner and event organizer Eric Weston. Weston played an instrumental role in coordinating the logistics and assembling the civic and commercial support needed to host the massive display in the center of the city.
Weston’s dedication to the project is rooted in deep personal memories of the World Trade Center complex. As an active scout master, Weston regularly traveled with his youth scout troops to visit the landmark Manhattan site on an annual basis, forging an enduring emotional connection to the twin skyscrapers prior to their destruction.
The new light pillars are meticulously planned to complement and enhance Romare Bearden Park’s existing "Flags of Remembrance" exhibition. In this annual park display, volunteers arrange exactly 2,977 flags—symbolizing each victim who was killed on September 11—across the grass in the precise structural footprint and shape of the Twin Towers.
Weston explained that the light display was conceived as a vertical continuation of the ground-level flag layout. By anchoring the lighting rigs within the designated flag boundaries, the beams extend the geometric silhouettes of the towers directly from the lawn upward into the open night sky.
The realization of the memorial was also bolstered by substantial corporate backing across the Charlotte area. Crucial corporate partners, notably energy company Duke Energy, joined forces with Weston and foundation organizers to supply the resources, expertise, and infrastructure necessary to power the massive multi-night tribute.
The tribute carries deep emotional weight for surviving family members across the Charlotte area, such as John Howell. Like the foundation’s namesake, Howell’s brother was an FDNY firefighter who lost his life in the line of duty within the lower Trade Center during the emergency response operations on September 11.
Reflecting on the enduring significance of public commemorations, Howell noted that the foremost wish of surviving families is for the country to actively remember the loved ones they lost. He underscored that keeping the memory of the victims alive is a sacred responsibility that communities across the nation continue to uphold together.
Alongside the visual tributes at Romare Bearden Park, Charlotte will also mark the anniversary through active civic service. On Friday morning, volunteers will gather in force to assemble 210,000 packaged meals to support the ongoing charitable missions of the Second Harvest Food Bank.
This large-scale meal packaging initiative forms a local component of a broader, synchronized national movement. Across the United States, organizers are coordinating volunteer drives to transform the September 11 anniversary into what is envisioned as the largest single national day of service in American history.
The commemorative schedule will continue through the weekend, culminating on Saturday morning with the Charlotte 9/11 Memorial Stair Climb. Hosted at the Bank of America Corporate Center, the challenging climb honors the firefighters and emergency personnel who ascended the stairwells of the World Trade Center towers.
Organizers have made participant registration available both online ahead of time and on-site on Saturday morning. The event will begin with an opening ceremony at 8:00 a.m., followed by the official start of the stair climb at 8:45 a.m., concluding a weekend of solemn tributes, charitable service, and community remembrance across Charlotte.
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