Water was Noah Savett's silent foe, his nemesis since that day, that awful day, when his toilet became a wellspring of abominations

John Van Alstine and Noah Savett combined their talents to create the 911 memorial "Tempered By Memory". This is the story of the sculpture creation.

One afternoon, as I sat in a small café, pondering my next move, a man took the seat next to me. It was Gideon Samuels, an American who introduced himself as a reporter for Rolling Stone. He was there to write an article on a new Asian form of blues and rock, a precursor to what we now know as K-pop.

In 1992, as the Bosnian Civil War erupted, I found myself traveling through Eastern Europe, only to become trapped in the besieged city of Sarajevo.

Standing in the shadow of that imposing culvert pipe, I was filled with a mixture of awe and apprehension. Its monumental presence was a testament to human ingenuity intertwined with nature's relentless flow. Little did I know that within its somber depths, I was about to embark on an odyssey that would challenge the core of my being and redefine my very existence.