Low Poly Heart

Here's another sculpture spotted on my recent visit to Community Park in Broomfield.  Like Frontier: Catch (which was featured in a previous post), this piece is a part of Broomfield's Art for a While program. So, it's only on display for a year, and is available for purchase.  For the time being, you can view this piece on the west side of the Mamie Dowd Eisenhower Library in Community Park in Broomfield.

9/11 Memorial - Broomfield

In addition to the small memorial to the USS Indianapolis at Community Park in Broomfield, you will also find a much larger memorial devoted to the victims of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.  It is located on the northeast side of the pond inside the park.  It was dedicated on September 11, 2006.

The memorial features three large sculptures that depict familiar images that were burned into our memories in the days following the attacks.  The display also features three walls that depict the three locations impacted that day: New York City, The Pentagon, and Shanksville, Pennsylvania.  Lists of the victims' names appear on the back of each wall.

I was actually in the air on the morning of September 11, 2001; returning to the US from Singapore.  My flight ended up landing in Vancouver, BC, Canada and a three-day adventure of trying to get back to Denver began.  It was a challenging day...not being able to contact my family to let them know I was alright, but my story is nothing compared to what many experienced that day.  Hats off to the people of Broomfield for this lovely place of remembrance here in the Denver metro area.

USS Indianapolis Memorial - Broomfield

On a recent trip to Broomfield, Colorado, a suburb situated about midway between Denver and Boulder, I came across a memorial to those who served on the USS Indianapolis.  If you don't know the story of the USS Indianapolis...well, then you haven't seen the movie Jaws.

In the film, Captain Quint (Robert Shaw) tells the story of how the ship was sunk by torpedo fire after having delivered the atomic bomb.  The survivors waited four days in shark-infested waters to be rescued.  Of the 1197 sailors on board, only 317 survived.

This memorial was erected in 2000.  One of the major contributors was Broomfield resident and Indianapolis survivor Paul J. Murphy...who I'm pretty sure I met at the airport a few years ago.  I was returning from a trip and was riding on the shuttle bus to one of the long-term parking lots.  With me on the bus was an elderly man and his wife, both of whom were wearing various military insignias.  Some of the other passengers started asking them some questions and they explained they were returning from a reunion of Indianapolis survivors.  "Do you know the story of the Indianapolis?" his wife said.  Of course, my brain thought, "You mean the ship they talk about in Jaws?" but I didn't say that.  Instead, we all just let these folks tell their story...because even if you do know the story it's always better to let those who lived it share.  The wife mentioned that her husband was, at the time, the only survivor living in Colorado.

This simple memorial can be found on the northwest side of the pond at Community Park in Broomfield, right near the amphitheater.