'Last Column's' Return: Beam That Became
9/11 Memorial Comes Back To WTC Site Monday
NY Daily News 8/21/09
After seven years in a hangar at Kennedy Airport, the Last Column is coming back to Ground Zero on Monday, the Daily News has learned. |
Rendering of the last column,
which was removed from the World Trade Center, at the site of
the museum at the World Trade Center.
The last soaring column that stood proud at the World Trade
Center after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks - and became a beloved
symbol of defiance in the face of terror - is finally coming
home.
After more than seven years in a hangar at Kennedy Airport, the
mighty steel beam - emblazoned with engine company and police
precinct insignias - will be returned to Ground Zero on Monday,
the Daily News has learned.
The 58-ton, 36-foot-tall column is so gargantuan in size that
its permanent new home, the National Sept. 11 Memorial & Museum,
will literally be erected around it, officials in charge of the
rebuilding say.
"What makes the Last Column so powerful and authentic is that it
was the most makeshift of all the memorials as people
spontaneously left firehouse patches, police logos and union
stickers to honor the victims," said Museum President Joe
Daniels.
Visitors to the subterranean museum will see the shorthand of
mourners, who marked their losses in industrial spray paint: "PAPD
37," at the very top, refers to the number of Port Authority
cops massacred.
"NYPD 23" and "FDNY 343" recalls the Finest and Bravest who gave
their lives.
"This is ultimately a sign of rebirth," said Port Authority
Executive Director Chris Ward.
"We are bringing back the Last Column of the old World Trade
Center as we erect the first columns of the new World Trade
Center."
Officially identified as Column 1001-B, the steel beam, one of
47 that held up the South Tower, was quickly plastered with Mass
cards, rosary beads, flags, photos of missing innocents, letters
from children to parents who would never be coming home.
"It's a girder like no other girder on Earth," said Jimmy
Hurley, 57, an ironworker from Staten Island who watched as it
was cut down on May 28, 2002, marking the end to the world's
most heart-wrenching recovery effort.
"It's an icon where loving remembrances were left for lost loved
ones," said Lou Mendes, a former top city official who ran
clean-up operations.
After an eight-month effort to cart away 1.8 million tons of
rubble, the Last Column was carried off the site to the skirl of
bagpipes playing "Amazing Grace."
Preservationists lovingly restored it, as if it were a
Rembrandt, in JFK's Hangar 17.
Swaddled in plastic and covered in a giant climate-controlled
box, it will be quietly returned to the site at sunrise Monday
with a police and fire escort.
dfeiden@nydailynews.com
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