My Top 10 Favourites in 9/11 Museum, New York, USA

‘No day shall erase you from the memory of time.’- Virgil

‘Beyond a compelling need to make this a monument to world peace, the World Trade Center should, because of its importance, become a living representation of man’s belief in humanity, his need for individual dignity, his beliefs in the cooperation of men, and through this cooperation his ability to find greatness.’- Minoru Yamasaki, World Tade Center Architect

1.) Shoes worn by Linda Raish-Lopez on 9/11 

     Fiduciary Trust employee Linda Raisch-Lopez began her evacuation on the 97th floor of the South Tower after seeing flames erupt from the North Tower. When she reached the debris-strewn World Trade Center Plaza, she began walking North. It was not until she was in line to board a ferry home to New Jersey that Raisch-Lopez noticed that blood from her cut and blistered feet had stained her high heels.

 

2.) The Last Column

      The Last Column, a 58-ton, 36-foot-tall piece of wielded plate steel, was part of Column 1001B, one of 47 columns that supported the inner core of the South Tower. When the South Tower collapsed, this remnant remained anchored in bedrock, buried beneath the wreckage.

 

3.) Vessey Street stair remnant: The “Survivors’ Stairs”

      The Vessey Street stairs, located on the northernmost edge of the World Trade Center Plaza, withstood the collapse on 9/11. Most of the damage now visible was inflicted during the cleanup operation, which included demolition of the adjacent escalators and what remained of two nearby buildings, 5 WTC and 6 WTC. The stairs were slated for destruction until a federal review process involving preservationists, survivors, and other advocates eventually assured that this symbolic remnant, now known as the Survivor’s Stairs, would be saved.

 

4.) Fragment of the hijacked Flight 11

 

5.) 9/11 Memorial Towers of Unity, 2015

     Created by artist and philanthropist Richard Sean Manning, donated to promote unity through art. The vertically-stacked cylinders in Richard Sean Manning’s sculptures represent offices, with doors and windows cut into them to suggest companies in the Twin Towers were akin to family homes. One sculpture features a replica of the communications antenna that stood atop the North Tower.

 

6.) North Tower Communications Antenna

A massive antenna on the roof of the North Tower distinguished the building from its Twin.

 

7.) The Three Shades, in the offices of Cantor Fitzgerald

     Cantor Fitzgerald, a bond brokerage firm, maintained offices on floors 101 to 105 of the North Tower and sustained the largest loss of life from one company on 9/11. Its reception areas and conference rooms had displayed works of art, primarily from the colection of the firm’s cofounder, B. Gerald Cantor. Fragments of bronze sculptures, including a torso from 19th-century French sculptor Auguste Rodin’s The Three Shades, were recovered at Fresh Kills.

 

8.) Section of steel facade, North Tower, floors 96-99

This piece of steel, once part of the north facade of the North Tower, was located at the point of impact where hijacked Flight 11 pierced the building at the 93rd through the 99th floors.

 

9.) The Memorial Pools

     The Memorial pools stand in the footprints of the Twin Towers.  Each pool is one acre in size. There are 2983 names on the 9/11 Memorial honoring the 2977 killed at the three attack sites on September 11, 2002 and the six people killed in the February 26, 1993 bombing at the World Trade Center.

 

10.) The Survivor Tree

      A callery pear tree became known as the Survivor Tree after enduring the September 11, 2001 terror attacks at the World Trade Center. In October 2001, the tree was discovered at ground zero severely damaged, with snapped roots and burned
and broken branches. The tree was removed from the rubble and placed in the care of the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation. After its recovery and rehabilitation, the tree was returned to the Memorial in 2010. New, smooth limbs extended from the gnarled stumps, creating a visible demarcation between the tree’s past and present. The tree stands as a living reminder of resilience, survival and rebirth.
The 9/11 Memorial began a tree seedling program on Sept. 11, 2013, in partnership with Stamford, Conn.-based Bartlett Tree Experts and John Bowne High School in the Flushing
neighborhood of Queens, N.Y. John Bowne High School cares for the seedlings as part of the school’s agriculture curriculum. Seedlings have been shared with communities around the world that have endured tragedy. Recipient communities have committed to nurturing these trees to serve as landmarks symbolizing resiliency and hope. The 2017 recipients include:
• Manchester, England, where 22 people, including young adults and children, were killed by a terrorist bombing at an Ariana Grande concert on May 22, 2017.
• Charleston, S.C., where a gunman killed nine people at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church on June 17, 2015.
• Haiti, where Hurricane Matthew wreaked havoc in October 2016, leading to numerous deaths and destruction throughout the country.
Past recipient communities include Newtown, Conn., Joplin, Mo., Madrid, Spain, Far Rockaways in Queens, N.Y., Prescott, Ariz. and Boston, Mass.