Final Large Ground Zero Artifacts Moved from JFK Hangar

Final Large Ground Zero Artifacts Moved from JFK Hangar

Frank Siller, chairman and CEO of the Stephen Siller Tunnel to Towers Foundation addresses a crowd during a ceremony marking the removal of the final 9/11 artifacts from a Hangar 17 at John F. Kennedy International Airport.
Frank Siller, chairman and CEO of the Stephen Siller Tunnel to Towers Foundation addressing a crowd during the ceremony at JFK. Photo Credit: Port Authority of New York & New Jersey.

The three largest remaining 9/11 artifacts stored at Kennedy International Airport’s Hangar 17 have been ceremoniously removed and sent to an advocacy group for a future exhibition, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey said Wednesday.

For nearly fifteen years, Hangar 17 served as the repository for more than 2,500 artifacts collected from ground zero and is set to close at the end of the summer. Many artifacts from Hangar 17 are on display at the 9/11 Memorial Museum, including the steel tridents from the North Tower and the FDNY Ladder Company 3 firetruck.

The last three major artifacts removed Tuesday during a solemn ceremony included a 40,000-pound parking structure column, a 35,000-pound elevator motor and a 40,000-pound antenna connector. They were placed on flatbed trucks adorned with American flags and transported to the Stephen Siller Tunnel to Towers Foundation, which says they will be stored for future exhibition.

The Tunnel to Towers Foundation was established by foundation chairman and CEO Frank Siller in honor of his brother Stephen Siller, a firefighter who died on Sept. 11.

“It’s important for our country not to forget what happened on that day and we have taken on that responsibility,” Siller said during the emotional service. “These [are] sacred, sacred artifacts, and that’s how we will treat them.”

The hangar will close in the coming weeks and is expected to be demolished, Port officials said.

 By 9/11 Memorial Staff

JFK Hangar Which Housed 9/11 Relics to Close

JFK Hangar Which Housed 9/11 Relics to Close

A view inside Hangar 17 at John F. Kennedy International Airport shows damaged FDNY fire trucks and other relics from the 9/11 attacks.
Over 2,500 9/11 artifacts were housed in Hangar 17 at JFK Airport. Photo by Amy Dreher.

From the mangled first responder’s emergency vehicles to shafts of broken metal, some 2,500 relics from 9/11 have been held in Hangar 17 at John F Kennedy International Airport.

Now, Hangar 17 is slated to close permanently at the end of the summer once the last of the final few relics--including concrete sections from the parking garage, a mangled elevator motor and a section of the North Tower antenna--are cleared out.

The artifacts that were once housed there have been adopted and put on display by more than 1,400 groups and foundations both within the United States and internationally, according to a recent LA Times article.

“Because it was such a unifying event, I think that a lot of smaller towns, emergency services and schools really want to create a continuing knowledge about what happened and find a way of connecting it to US history,” Amy Passiak, the archivist supervising the dissemination project.

For Passiak, who has served on the project since 2010, the goal has been to keep the memory of 9/11 alive. Photographs of some of the artifacts in Hangar 17 are featured in the book Memory Remains: 9/11 Artifacts at Hangar 17 by Spanish installation artist Francesc Torres.

Items previously housed in the hangar include the steel tridents from the façade of the North Tower and a mangled fire truck crushed from the fall of rubble on 9/11. Today, both are on display in the 9/11 Memorial Museum.

By Madeline Lipton, 9/11 Memorial Communications Intern

9/11 Artifacts Donated to New Homes

9/11 Artifacts Donated to New Homes

Crews load PATH train car number 143 onto a flatbed trailer outside Hangar 17 at John F. Kennedy International Airport.
Crews load PATH train car No. 143 onto a flatbed trailer outside Hangar 17 at John F. Kennedy International Airport. Photo by Lenis Rodrigues.

A pair of 9/11 artifacts have been moved to a permanent home after being stored for more than a decade at an aircraft hangar in Queens, NY.

The artifacts, a PATH train car and a piece of the antenna from the North Tower, were kept at Hangar 17 at John F. Kennedy International Airport following the 2001 terror strikes. The artifacts were moved last week to a museum and community college in upstate New York.

The train car, No. 143, was donated to the Trolley Museum of New York in Kingston, becoming the museum’s first artifact with a 9/11 connection. The Fulton-Montgomery Community College in Johnstown received a 32-foot section of the 360-foot antenna. The college plans to install the antenna on its campus near a Vietnam War memorial and the student union, according to The New York Times.

Peter L. Rinaldi, a retired Port Authority engineer said in The Times article that he first discovered the PATH rail cars in late September of 2001 "when several of us went underground to inspect the condition of the remains of the W.T.C. PATH station beneath the rubble and burning debris."

"There were six empty PATH cars still in the station at that time, three of which were badly damaged and three that were not," he said, adding it was that moment when he thought that one of the cars could possibly be saved as an artifact. 

There are 228 objects, which are mainly small, that remain at the hangar, said Steve Coleman, a spokesman for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. The Port has long been preserving World Trade Center remnants, including artifacts that are now on display in the 9/11 Memorial Museum like the Last Column and the so-called steel tridents.

By Christine Murphy, 9/11 Memorial Administration/Researcher

Memory Remains: Exhibit Explores 9/11 Artifacts of Hangar 17

Memory Remains: Exhibit Explores 9/11 Artifacts of Hangar 17

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A 9/11 artifact is projected on a screen as part of the Torres exhibit in Madrid. (Photo by Clifford Chanin)

"Memory Remains: 9/11 Artifacts at Hangar 17," the large-scale projection installation by Francesc Torres, has opened in Madrid at CentroCentro, a new cultural center in the heart of the city.  The opening on Thursday marks the fourth for the Torres exhibition that was commissioned by the National September 11 Memorial Museum(9/11 Memorial Museum), following the International Center of Photography in New York, the Imperial War Museum in London and the Center for Contemporary Culture in Barcelona. 

In Madrid, large images of objects taken from the World Trade Center site after the 2001 attacks and stored at JFK Airport's Hangar 17, are projected on six screens, about 8 feet by 14 feet.  Two objects from the Hangar 17 collection are also on display as part of the installation: a rack of eyeglasses from an optician's display and a mannequin with a water-stained skirt, both retrieved from concourse shops of the World Trade Center.

Madrid Mayor Alberto Ruiz-Gallardon and the American Ambassador to Spain, Alan Solomont, gave remarks at the opening.  This is the first exhibition presented at CentroCentro, the former headquarters of the Spanish Postal Service and now, after eight years of restoration, a major new cultural attraction. 

By Clifford Chanin, Education Director for the 9/11 Memorial Museum

ICP Exhibitions Focus on WTC Remnants

ICP Exhibitions Focus on WTC Remnants

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Click here to learn more about a collaborative exhibition between the International Center of Photography  and the National September 11 Memorial & Museum, marking the 10-year anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks. 

The exhibition is open from Sept. 9 through Jan. 8. 

By 9/11 Memorial Staff

York County, S.C., Firehouse Secures Very Own Piece of WTC Steel

York County, S.C., Firehouse Secures Very Own Piece of WTC Steel

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Volunteer firefighters in York County, S.C., plan to build a public memorial with a piece of steel from the World Trade Center, according to The Herald.

According to the report, the Bethesda Volunteer Fire Department has been approved to receive a steel beam retrieved from the wreckage of the fallen twin towers. The community, which is about 180 miles southwest of Durham, joins other municipalities across the country that have requested the steel from the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

"The beam - categorized among the thousands of huge and small pieces of steel at JFK Airport Hangar 17 as 'H-90' - is 14-feet long, an inch thick, 16 inches wide, 34 inches tall and weighs almost two tons" or more than 4,000 pounds, the report said.

By 9/11 Memorial Staff

Video: WSJ Columnist Visits Hangar Filled with WTC Steel

                                 

Good Day NY interviews Ralph Gardner, a Wall Street Journal columnist, about his trip hangar 17 at JKF International Airport.  World Trade Center remnant steel, crushed emergency vehicles and other artifacts recovered from ground zero have been housed there since 2001. Some of the artifacts will be part of exhibits at the 9/11 Memorial Museum.  

Read Ralph's column, Urban Gardener, browse the Hangar photos from the WSJ article.  The steel beams have been sent across the country for use in local memorials. A batch of steel was relocated  to New Jersey in October.

By Norm Dannen, Public Affairs Associate 

(VIDEO) Hangar 17: Salvaging WTC, Preserving History

Watch the latest video at video.foxnews.com

The above video is from Fox News' The Rise of Freedom series featuring hangar 17 at John F. Kennedy Airport in Queens, where World Trade Center remnant steel, crushed emergency vehicles and other artifacts recovered from ground zero have been housed since 2001.

Read more about hangar 17 at FoxNews.com.

By 9/11 Memorial Staff

WTC 'Tridents' are being installed inside 9/11 memorial museum (Updated x3)

WTC 'Tridents' are being installed inside 9/11 memorial museum (Updated x3)

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(Eds Note: The installation is ongoing. This post will be updated as developments occur.)

The so-called steel "tridents," historic remnants of the Twin Towers’ façade, is being permanently installed in the 9/11 Memorial Museum.  The 70-foot high columns known as “tridents” because of their three-pronged tops, were salvaged from the wreckage of the north tower. Each weighs about 50 tons, and will be on permanent display within the atrium of the Museum Pavilion.

After being salvaged from the wreckage, the “tridents” were housed at John F. Kennedy Airport’s Hangar 17 with other recovered WTC artifacts.  The tridents are currently covered in a white protective covering to prevent any damage  during continued construction of the Museum.

Update: One of the two steel tridents was successfully placed in position. Read more about it in this Associated Press report. Separately, Bloomberg's Henry Goldman reported on the overall status of the reconstruction at the World Trade Center site.

9/11 Memorial staff

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