On Sept. 11, 2001, with everything in ruins, one figure remained in Liberty Park across the street from the World Trade Center. He was sitting hunched over, staring in his briefcase, a businessman who seemed to be in shock and despair. Rescue workers, it was reported, approached him in the chaos to offer assistance, only to discover that he was not a man at all, but a sculpture.
The sculpture, created by J. Seward Johnson Jr. and placed downtown in 1982, was titled ''Double Check.'' It was named for what it depicted: a businessman making final preparations before heading into a nearby office building. Before 9/11, the sculpture was simply part of the downtown landscape. Afterward, it became an icon, as newspaper and magazine photos showed it covered in ash and, later, by flowers, notes and candles left there by mourners and rescue workers. ''Double Check'' was a memorial to all those who perished. It was also a fitting metaphor for the city: though the sculpture had been knocked loose from its moorings, it had endured.
The Statue is symbolic or a "shrine" because of what? 
