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Almost any New Yorker can tell you where they were and how they felt on the morning of September 11, 2001. Sculptor David T. Haussler (dthsculptor.com), of Fort Salonga, remembers feeling an urgency to recreate the devastating image. “It was a moment frozen in time,” he says. “When the second plane hit the South Tower, people realized this was not an accident, it was an attack. I wanted to capture that moment because it was the turning point for our nation.”
Working out of his studio and the Bohemia workshop of All Island Blower and Sheet Metal, Inc., Haussler designed two 60-inch towers—complete replicas right down to the scaled-down broadcast antennae. The three-dimensional burnished-steel sculpture, known as the World Trade Center Remembrance Project, stands nearly eight feet tall and weighs more than 800 pounds. In June 2002, Haussler unveiled his project at the 22nd Annual Outdoor Sculpture Show at John T. Mather Memorial Hospital, in Port Jefferson. “Reactions vary from A to Z, and always will, until the pain of 9/11 has time to heal,” he explains. The sculpture is currently on display at Half Hollow Hills Library in Dix Hills, and will continue on to various locations throughout Suffolk County. The public is invited to record memories in a hand-bound leather journal that, according to the sculptor, “gives people the freedom to express their honest feelings.”
In 2003, Haussler was contacted by the Boys and Girls Club of Stonybrook and the Setauket Fire District to construct a centerpiece for the 9/11 Setauket Memorial Park. The original designer of the project, M. Quinn, a Ward Melville High School senior, was picked from a local contest to draw up the park plans and sculpture. Haussler remodified it into a smaller structure. “Ms. Quinn designed the American flag burning straight up. I streamlined it down to a more feminine design in honor of the fact that our flag was originally designed by a woman.”
With more than 30 years of commissions as well as gallery and museum shows, Haussler ranks as one of the outstanding outdoor metal sculptors of his generation. He belongs to Long Island Professional Sculptor’s & Supporters (LIPSS, lipss.net), a grassroots organization dedicated to developing sculpture awareness throughout Long Island. Haussler is also part of a permanent public art collection at William Rainey Harper College in Illinois, among other renowned artists such as Picasso, Benton, and Bruce White.
