Unveiled artwork inspired by changes after Sept. 11

NEW YORK -- The sounds of boat engines recorded beneath the Hudson River echo through a World Financial Center walkway. In another, photos of landfill containing the twin towers' debris cover windows overlooking the World Trade Center site. \nNine works focusing on changes Sept. 11 wrought on lower Manhattan were unveiled Tuesday in the public spaces of the battered World Financial Center, in what organizers call a vital part of its revitalization. \nFalling steel beams from the collapsing north tower gutted the Winter Garden, the financial center's centerpiece aluminum-and-glass atrium. A $50 million restoration replaced its metal framework, 2,000 panes of glass and 16 40-foot Florida palm trees. \nRepair work continued Tuesday on other sections of the building as office workers hurried past crowds of tourists snapping shots of ground zero from windows. \nOverhead were simulated surveillance cameras, made from cardboard, wax, a shopping bag and other everyday materials by German-born artist Elke Lehmann, to defuse with humor the newfound sense of discomfort and anxiety in many public spaces. \n"All the artists' work in some way responds to this new environment," center spokeswoman Karen Kitchen said. "It's a renewed facility, a new psychological environment in a post-9-11 world." \nIn the upper floor of an entrance atrium, artist Andrea Ray covered five large windows with a panoramic digital photograph of the Fresh Kills landfill, where the wreckage of the trade center was sifted for human remains. \nBleachers face the windows, which overlook the trade center site. Spectators are invited to slip on headphones and listen to a recording following an unnamed person's recovery from an unspecified trauma. \nArtist Charles Goldman asked passers-by to write down stories of their memories, which in turn inspired 120 small clay sculptures that he arranged on metal shelves near a series of retail outlets. \nThe work is meant to evoke the randomness of experience and the loss of those killed in the trade center attack, organizers said. \n"We've lost billions of potential memories in the World Trade Center," said Moukhtar Kocache, director of visual and media arts initiatives for the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council. \nThe council's "New Views: World Financial Center" program, which began in May, gave the artists free space and small stipends. Their works make the center more lively and appealing for employees and their families, Kitchen said. \nThe works will be on view through Jan. 17.