After wandering around on the riverfront in Peekskill I took the train down to Scarborough (the closest station to our house in Briarcliff Manor) where my wife was going to pick me up. We planned to go to a presentation on “Historic Downtown Ossining” given by the Ossining Historical Society at the Ossining Boat and Canoe Club. When I got off the train I noticed these stained glass windows on the river side of the platform. Apparently they make up part of “Untitled with Sky” (2010), stained glass windows and sculptural sitting facilities. They are by Liliana Porter in collaboration with Ana Tiscornia. There are supposed to be six panels, but I only noticed three. Maybe the others are now elsewhere in the station – perhaps on another platform. The MTA describes the work as follows:

Faceted glass in windscreen of the station platform; Glass mosaic sculptural seats in plaza area
Untitled with Sky explores the boundaries between illusion – six faceted glass windows and twelve sculptural seats clad in mosaic that depict a beautiful sky as it changes from morning to evening – and “truth,” – the actual sky as it appears on either side of the art glass. Created in swirling, curved shapes in a variety of blues, purples, and rose, the work brings color and brightness to the platform where commuters wait for their morning train. The sculptural seats echo the contours and color of the windows and provide an amenity for Metro-North customers.

According to the Fieldguide to US Public Monuments and Memorials:

This remembrance honors Samuel Oitice, a 25-year Peekskill, New York, veteran firefighter, native and resident. Oitice was also a City of New York firefighter; he was killed in the terrorist attacks on the towers of the World Trade Center, 9/11/2001. The memorial recalls and pays homage also to victims, responders and rescuers as well as those left behind, stunned and grieved, that Tuesday morning after equally vicious attacks in Pennsylvania and Virginia.

The site’s program and design were developed by the memorial’s leadership group in cooperation with The Verdin Company of Cincinnati, Ohio. The memorial’s centerpiece, a bronze statue of a firefighter, behind a stoic gaze and on one knee, before Oitice’s remaindered, fire-fighting gear, was created by artist Andrea Grimsley under an arrangement with Verdin. Combined with the site as well is a steel beam from the WTC, courtesy of the Port Authority of NY and NJ.

The work’s supporters and champions were many, led and coordinated by the Sam Oitice Heroes Remembered Memorial Committee. From idea to unveiling, its members labored nearly ten years to create the monument.

The memorial was dedicated July 24, 2010. The white structure in the background is the monument commemorating the deaths of seven firefighters during the 1918 Fleischmanns factory fire.

A nearby inscription reads:

PEEKSKILL FIRE DEPARTMENT ALARM BELL

ON AUGUST 1, 1918 THIS BELL TOLLED THE ALARM FOR THE FLEISCHMANN MANUFACTURING COMPANY FIRE AT WHICH SEVEN PEEKSKILL VOLUNTEER FIREFIGHTERS LOST THEIR LIVES.

DEDICATED TO THE MEMORY OF THOSE GALLANT MEN WHO GAVE THEIR LIVES IN THE FLEISCHMANN FIRE

AUGUST 1 1918

This is followed by a listing of names of each of the firefighters and the quotation “Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends” – John 15:13