The memorial at the African Burial Ground is expected to open in fall 2006

One of the benefits of commemorating historical sites with memorials is the physical space of serenity and reflection doing so brings to a community. As such, memorials are particularly welcome in the densely built neighborhoods of Lower Manhattan, where green and open spaces are oases amid the feet of skyscrapers lining narrow streets.

At Duane and Elk Streets, sandwiched between courthouses and municipal buildings, a new memorial is on the way to providing a new, welcome respite -- while marking one of the city's and the country's most significant historical sites.

The quiet corner lot is the African Burial Ground, a National Historic Landmark, whose future memorial is already planned to serve as a National Monument.

In the Revolutionary era, the African Burial Ground was originally more than five acres of today's northern Civic-Center area and was located just beyond the city line (approximately today's Chambers Street). It is estimated that more than 20,000 free and enslaved African were buried there during the 17^th and 18^th centuries.

Over time, as buildings were built and rebuilt in the area, the cemetery remained relatively undisturbed, preserved as deep down as 20 feet. It was in 1991, upon the U.S. General Services Administration's (GSA) excavation to erect the Weiss Building, that the remains of more than 400 African adults and children were discovered at the Duane and Elk Streets lot. They were exhumed, along with artifacts like beads, coins, and shells, and extensively analyzed by archaeologists at Howard University in Washington D.C.

Meanwhile, the site was named a landmark as the country's largest and only known urban, pre-Revolutionary African cemetery, and it was decided that it should be preserved with a memorial, as well as an Interpretive Center for cultural and historical education and events.

To that end, on October 4, 2003, the remains of 419 African descendents were returned to New York and re-interred during the first annual "Rites of Ancestral Return" ceremony. And as of March 2006, the long-awaited construction of the $3.8 million African Burial Ground Memorial got underway, marking the final resting place for the remains and heralding the cultural significance of the site.

Leon's memorial design was selected from 61 finalists

Léon, of AARIS Architects on nearby John Street, is responsible for the tranquil design of the 15,000-square-foot memorial, named the "Ancestral Libation Chamber." In 1997, Léon responded to an initial call for proposals put forth by the GSA, the site's manager, along with the National Parks Service (NPS). After finalists were reduced to five from the 61 original responders, Léon was at last named the memorial's designer in spring 2005.

It is easy to understand why his program won out. Léon's design is not only beautiful and inventive, it incorporates symbols that evoke the African, Caribbean, Latin American, and related cultural diaspora of those interred at the site. Among them is the "sankofa," an Adinkra (West African) symbol that has become a sort of badge for the memorial, having been identified in a beadwork pattern adorning one of the bodies buried at the site. The symbol, which resembles an ornate, stylized heart, essentially means "to go back to the past and learn from it, in order to move into the future," explains Léon.

Léon's memorial layout has several components. The memorial will be within a fence-free grassy area, with trees lining its south and west sides. Along the west is the "Ancestral Grove," where seven trees will be planted to mark the seven large sarcophagi in which the exhumed African descendants were re-interred.

Designed to be an interactive, or "living" memorial, Léon's design is centered on the "Ancestral Libation Court," at the heart of which is a libation font, a sort of ever-full water bowl imbedded in the granite floor. It is arrived at via a spiral processional ramp that descends six feet below grade, around which is a wall etched with cultural symbols and their meanings.

The western edge of the circular court is home to the "Ancestral Chamber," a polished-granite form that rises 24 feet above grade. Through the chamber's "Door of Return" visitors enter a small, sacred space for "individual contemplation, reflection, meditation, and prayer," according to Léon's description.

Also around the site are the "Wall of Remembrance," which gives a historic chronology of the African Burial Ground, and four granite pillars to mark the locations, contents, and dates of interment for the 419 bodies at rest there. Along with the symbols, structures, and history marked at the site, Léon's design is inscribed: "For all those who were lost, for all those who were stolen, for all those who were left behind, for all those who are not forgotten."

"We hope to raise awareness of the history of the burial ground site to reveal a hidden part of Lower Manhattan, reveal its history," says Léon. "We also want to give it more of a prominent place, [because] there are so many things that have happened culturally downtown…[We want people] to interact with it."

The calm, open space of the memorial should be available to the community and the city by October 2006, when its construction is largely complete and when it will once again be the site of the annual "Rites of Ancestral Return" ceremony.

Plans for the Interpretive Center and potentially a distinct museum space are still being explored by GSA, possibly to occupy space in one of the buildings adjacent to the African Burial Ground site.

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