The Daily Herald has an article today about the North Maine Fire Protection District receiving a six-foot steel I-beam from the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York. North Maine and Des Plaines were both awarded 9/11 artifacts to be used in local memorials as mentioned HERE. Excerpts from today’s article:
The North Maine Fire Protection District this week unveiled a 6-foot-long, 4-inch-wide steel remnant of the World Trade Center towers in New York City that collapsed on Sept. 11, 2001.
North Maine fire officials opened the sealed box bearing the artifact during a public ceremony Monday night at the fire headquarters on Potter Road.
The beam will become part of an existing Sept. 11 memorial at nearby Ridgewood Cemetery in Des Plaines, Fire Marshal Arnie Witzke said.
“The artifact itself is the perfect size and we couldn’t have asked for anything better,” Witzke said. “All that remains is to incorporate this artifact into the existing memorial at Ridgewood Cemetery and we all hope it will be ready for display this coming 10th anniversary of Sept. 11, 2011. It will truly add to the meaning of the annual moment of reflection that we all seem to hold every year since 2001.”
North Maine Fire District, which serves unincorporated Maine Township, applied for a piece of the wreckage to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which maintains an archive of materials salvaged from the World Trade Center ruins.
More than 900,000 applicants sought a remnant of the towers, including fire departments in Carpentersville and Mundelein that are awaiting their artifacts.
Des Plaines recently received a similar Sept. 11 artifact — a 114-pound steel girder standing 33 inches high and 11 inches deep and wide that was among the supports holding up the Twin Towers. The rusted beam will be memorialized, likely outside city hall, on the 10th anniversary of the attacks.
The complete article can be found HERE.
