WTC beams to join 9/11 memorials
Firefighters from the East Rockaway Fire Department and members of the VFW and American Legion Auxiliary salute and stand at attention as two pieces of steel from the World Trade Center pass through the Village of East Rockaway. The steel, which was en route to a fabricator in Oceanside, will be used in a memorial in East Rockaway. (August 10, 2011) Credit: Charles Eckert
Two pieces of steel from the World Trade Center that will be part of East Rockaway’s 9/11 memorial made a brief stop in the village yesterday and a completed steel beam memorial was delivered to neighboring Lynbrook.
The Village Foundation of East Rockaway Inc. secured the beams from the Twin Towers for the village’s memorial on the 10th anniversary of the terrorist attack. The two villages are among more than 1,100 communities and organizations worldwide that have received beams from the fallen towers.
“It’s a very momentous day for us,” said East Rockaway Mayor Francis T. Lenahan Jr. “We are the recipient of the steel that we consider to be sacred.”
More than 100 residents stood outside East Rockaway Village Hall around 11:30 a.m. to watch the procession of first responders escorting the steel covered by an American flag. The steel passed the Gate Way to American Heroes Memorial Park and continued to a fabricator in Oceanside, where it will be fashioned into a memorial to honor 11 people from the village and surrounding communities lost in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
“I was sitting with tears as we drove through and we remembered that date,” said Michael Golden, vice president of the foundation and a retired New York Police Department captain.
The steel was escorted from Hangar 17 at Kennedy Airport, then to East Rockaway and Oceanside.
A completed monument of two steel beams was escorted from Oceanside to Lynbrook for that community’s memorial, which will be on display for Sept. 11 vigils.
Above, firefighters from the East Rockaway Fire Department and members of the VFW and American Legion Auxiliary salute and stand at attention as two pieces of steel from the World Trade Center pass through the Village of East Rockaway. (Aug. 10, 2011)
