When the city of Naples, Fla., lays a red, white and blue wreath Saturday at the foot of the massive Freedom Memorial monument, Jerry Ladue can definitely look at it with pride.
After all, he designed the monument to those who died in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center. It was dedicated three years ago at Freedom Park. And even though Ladue, 68, continues to paint and design, the 1968 English High graduate’s design and its implementation represent the highlight of his life.
Ladue always knew he wanted to draw, from the time he was in the first grade at Ingalls School. He later got awards for poster contests from UNICEF and the United Fund.
“It came naturally to me,” he said. “And I just continued to do it.”
He may have liked to draw, but he decided not to go to art school. He went right to work after high school for Marist Footwear.
“I was a free bird, and I did what I wanted to do … and set out to do it.”
Ladue flew over to the old Girls Club as an arts and crafts director (“the first male teacher they ever hired”). He sewed beanbags. He designed logos for school bags. If it involved drawing, he did it.
He also said he developed an attitude of being able to do anything he set his mind to — something a former teacher reinforced.
“He was amazing with his hands,” said Mary Ishkanian. “He could make something delightful out of nothing. His creativity is boundless.”
But up to 2004, he was still going the conventional route. His last stop, before pulling up stakes and moving to Florida, was as the art director for a printing company in Brockton. That’s where he was when the two airplanes threw into the towers.
“We were all called into an office and told to watch the television,” he said. “I couldn’t believe it. When the dust blew away, everything was gone.”
When he heard that the city of New York wanted to build a monument on the site of the attacks, for one of the few times in his life Ladue pulled up short.
“I was sure I couldn’t do anything like that,” he said.
Then, he heard from a friend that the Naples News was sponsoring a contest to design a Freedom Memorial to commemorate those who died in the attacks.
“I knew immediately I could do that,” he said.
He became obsessed with it. He spent every moment of his life not given over to his job drawing on napkins, sketching with pencils, and working up schematics. He came up with a design and submitted it to the paper at the end of 2004, just as he was about to move to Florida.
“I got the acknowledgement that they’d received it, and I waited. And waited. And waited.
“I was in Ft. Lauderdale when I got the word that I had to go before the County Board of Commissioners in Naples. There were three final choices and my design was in the middle.”
Finally, the board announced its decision — and his design won.
“I immediately started crying,” he said. “It was like the greatest thing in the world, to me.
“When I got called up to the front of the room, my legs were like rubber bands,” he said. “It was like nothing I’d ever experienced in my life.”
That was only the beginning. Next came the implementation, and that was no easy feat.
The next step was to have his design turned into a blueprint by an architect, and then sculpted, piece by piece, in the design of an unfurled American flag, with granite bricks of colors representative of one. At a price tag of $2.5 million (all of it raised by, as Ladue says, “free-will donations”), it stands 13 feet tall and 40 feet wide. The stars on the monument are cut right out of the granite.
“That was what I wanted,” he said. “I wanted every stripe to be one foot tall.”
“He was down there watching it being put together,” said Ishkanian. “He definitely knows what he wants.”
Ladue is definitely happy with the final product.
“I couldn’t believe the architect translated it into a working thing,” he said. “I was so happy. I couldn’t believe he was so much on the mark.”
The response has been overwhelmingly positive, he said.
“Some of the firefighters down there were at the scene (of the attacks),” he said. “They’re all brothers, and they consider me one too.”
