In a photo taken at high noon on Thursday, Sept. 11, flags fly near the Unity Monument in Signal Hill’s Discovery Well Park. City staff placed the flags, along with flowers, at the sculpture, as they do each year on Sept. 11, to honor those who lost their lives in 2001. One local sculptor, Patrick Vogel, was so moved by the tragedy that he felt he had to design and build a memorial to honor the victims and to help ensure that no one on the West Coast would ever forget the horrors of that event. “This sculpture just serves as a way of keeping the memory of that terrible day alive,” Vogel said. “Hopefully, the Unity Monument will remind Americans of how fortunate we are to live in this country, how important it is to safeguard our liberties and to never forget the innocent victims of the tragedy.”
