Evoking the appearance of mourning ribbons which were draped on buildings at times of public grief, the main body of the memorial is a textured stainless steel ribbon, which descends from the corner of the 9th floor of the Brown Building, the site of the fire.  At the top of the ground floor the ribbon splits to flank the building's facades. The names of the 146 victims are cut into the ribbon 12 foot above the sidewalk and reflected by a darkened reflective panel on the street level. As visitors transverse the length of the memorial, the names of the victims overhead will appear in the reflective panel, written in the sky.

Testimonies of survivors and eye witnesses to the fire will be etched as a single line of text along the lower edge of the reflective panel, inviting the visitor to look down into the reflection and discover the names of the victims.