World Trade Center cross moved to museum

A cross-shaped steel beam found at Ground Zero amid the wreckage in the days after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks was a symbol of hope for many working on rescue and recovery there, so much so that the construction worker who discovered it believes he stumbled on to a miracle.

"I saw Calvary in the midst of all the wreckage, the disaster," Frank Silecchia recalled Saturday. "It was a sign . . . that God didn't desert us." The 2-ton, 20-foot-high T-beam became a religious relic and was placed at the oldest Roman Catholic parish in New York City, St. Peter's.

Saturday, it was moved and lowered 70 feet down into the bowels of where the twin towers once stood to become part of the exhibit at the National September 11th Memorial and Museum.

For all the religious fervor surrounding the cross, it will be t the museum because of its history at Ground Zero, not its Christian symbolism, museum officials said.

"It's powerful because it provided comfort to so many people. It is a part of the history of the space," said museum president Joe Daniels. He said steel girders made into other makeshift crosses, Stars of David and possibly some Eastern religious symbols would also be placed at the museum, scheduled to open in 2012. The memorial will open this year, on the 10th anniversary of the attack.

"It's important to have these artifacts that reflect the history, to remember, to see how people coped," Daniels said.

But for the Rev. Brian Jordan, the Roman Catholic priest who led the effort to preserve the cross, it is very much a symbol of Christianity -- sacrifice, loss and renewal, he said. Jordan celebrated Mass under the cross for weeks -- with people of many different religions.

"No one was turned away," he said. "Not only did I practice what I preached, I preached what I practiced."