Sol Moglen was like many Americans after last Sept. 11 - numb, hurting and looking for a way to help.
The owner of NuPro Films Inc., a small plastic film distributor in Livington, N.J., came up with a memorial wall honoring the 115 Brooklyn firefighters who died that day.
Moglen hit on the perfect, well-visited public site - an area outside the minor league park of the Brooklyn Cyclones, the team that brought professional baseball back to Brooklyn 44 years after the Dodgers departed for Los Angeles.
The Ebbets Field Wall of Remembrance is under construction by the sidewalk outside the year-old KeySpan Park.
``We wanted it to be where no one has to pay to see it,'' Moglen said. The ballpark is near the Atlantic Ocean and Coney Island, so it gets lots of foot traffic.
The wall, featuring pictures of each of the firefighters, will be kept under wraps until an unveiling ceremony tentatively scheduled for Oct. 20.
``We're expecting between 3,000 and 5,000 people to attend. The firehouses, the families. It's going to be a major event,'' Moglen said. Also invited are New York Gov. George Pataki, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and former Mayor Rudolph Guliani.
The families of every Brooklyn firefighter who died in the attack also will receive a special plaque.
Moglen did not know any of the firefighters personally. But as a Brooklyn native, he wanted to honor them. A few months after Sept. 11 he started making some calls. Then he founded the Ebbets Field Wall of Remembrance Foundation.
``We had to go to the mayor's office, who then said we need to talk to the parks department and the Brooklyn Cyclones,'' he said.
Moglen had a mental image of what the wall would be like. ``In traveling, whether you go to Worcester, Mass., or Akron, Ohio, every little town had a little memorial of the First and Second World War heroes that went off to war. I felt that we should do a memorial, in Brooklyn, for the fallen heroes.''
So far the foundation has raised about $100,000 of the $140,000 needed to build the memorial.
``Once the wall goes up, we should get the balance of commitments of the money,'' Moglen said. The not-for-profit foundation is not taking any government money.
Made of gray granite, the wall will measure 12 feet high by 20 feet wide. Laser-engraved portraits of all 115 firefighters, cut into black granite plates, are mounted on the wall. Names like Frank Palombo of Ladder 105, the father of 10 children.
Gracing the wall is a large cast-bronze statue of a pair of grieving firefighters who hold the helmet of a fallen comrade.
The wall foundation is working with Uniformed Firefighters Association of Greater New York. Serving on the wall foundation's board of directors is Marian Fontana, who lost her husband, David Fontana, from Squad 1. She founded the Sept. 11 Widows' and Victims' Families Association.
``We feel the wall will give a lot of the families closure,'' Moglen said.
Moglen is helping run his small company even as he works on the Ebbets Field Wall of Remembrance. Ten people work at NuPro Films, which distributes polypropylene and polyethylene films.
His connection to Brooklyn is strong. Moglen was 9 years old when he saw his first Dodgers game at Ebbets Field, in 1948. Later he saw Jackie Robinson play.
It seems frozen in time. ``It was such a short period of our life because, by 1957, they were gone.''
The Brooklyn Cyclones, part of the Mets farm system, are finishing up their second season at the KeySpan Park.