Bellport has WTC beam for 9/11 memorial

Bellport Mayor David Pate eyes a 6-foot, 380-pound piece of steel and sees a reflection of America after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks -- scarred but unbowed.

The steel beam, which the South Shore village acquired this month, once helped support the World Trade Center and now will be the centerpiece of Bellport's new Sept. 11 memorial.

"It really just defines what happened on Sept. 11," Pate said. "If a beam could speak, it would have quite the story."

Bellport is one of hundreds of communities in 50 states and five foreign countries that have received -- or are slated to receive -- a steel piece from the World Trade Center towers attacked on 9/11. The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey is overseeing the distribution of more than 1,100 pieces of steel from the two destroyed buildings.

Bellport's steel, picked up by village workers on May 10, will be draped in an American flag and carried on a fire truck in the village's Memorial Day parade, Pate said.

The steel will be fashioned into a monument honoring residents of Bellport and surrounding communities who died in the attacks, Pate said. The memorial might also recognize local responders, he said.

Charles Quappe, of Port St. Lucie, Fla., thinks the memorial is a great idea. His son, Lincoln, then a New York City firefighter and Brookhaven hamlet resident, died while responding to the attacks. He was 38.

"It's a very good thing they are doing because it will be there forever, and maybe some people will remember more if they had this tribute in front of them," Charles Quappe said.

The exact design of the memorial, to be finished before the 10th anniversary of the attacks, is being determined, Pate said. All materials and labor will be donated, he said.

The memorial will be in a park on Bellport Lane south of Station Road, Pate said.

The memorial's sculptor, Dwight Trujillo, founder of Village Silversmith in Bellport, was at Kennedy Airport hangar 17 -- where the Port Authority houses salvaged 9/11 artifacts -- when village workers picked up the steel.

"It was quite a moment," Trujillo said. "A very solemn place."

The Port Authority will be unable to accommodate all 1,500 requests it has received for World Trade Center steel, said Steve Coleman, a spokesman for the authority. The authority is also making contacts with museums for other salvaged items, such as subway cars and signs, he said.

The Port Authority cannot track Bellport's beam -- or most of the steel wreckage from the World Trade Center -- back to its original building, he said.

"The majority of pieces do not have identifiers," he said. "But this one definitely came from one of the World Trade Center buildings."

Bellport's Memorial Day parade, which will feature the World Trade Center steel, is scheduled to begin at 11 a.m. at Bell Street and Bellport Lane.