HomeMy WebLinkAboutSubmittal-Commissioner Sarnoffe-1-j
Nelson, Ron
From: Marc Sarnoff [msarnoff@sarnoffandbayer.com]
Sent: Monday, September 07, 2009 1:10 PM
To: Hernandez, Pedro G. (City Manager); Diaz, Manuel A (Mayor); Westall, Lynn; Valdez,
Suzanna
Cc: 'Peter Ehrlich'; 'Teresa Sarnofr; Nelson, Ron; Gonzalez, H. Bert; Karsh, David;
msarnoff@sarnoffandbayer.com
Subject: FW: NY TIMES; Sept. 11 Steel Forms Heart of Far -Flung Memorials are being gi...
Attachments: NY TIMES; Sept. 11 Steel Forms Heart of Far -Flung Memorials are being given away to towns
across the country. This opportunity might be worth looking into for Miami or Coconut Grove. -
From Harry
Importance: High
District 2 requests the City Manager take all steps necessary to acquire an artifact from the 9/11/01
WTC disaster. The artifact should be steel and/or concrete and it should weigh a minimum of 800
pounds. If the City does not have a funding source to pay for shipping Commissioner Sarnoff will
raise money privately to bring the memento to Miami.
Marc Sarnoff
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Nelson, Ron
From: Harry Emilio Gottlieb [hgplace@bellsouth.net]
Sent: Monday, September 07, 2009 10:37 AM
To: 'Harry E. Gottlieb'. .
Subject: NY 1"IMES; Sept. 11 Steel Forms Heart of Far -Flung Memorials are being given away to towns
across the country. This opportunity might be worth looking into for Miami or Coconut Grove. -
From Harry
hftp://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/07/nyregion/07steel.html?_r=l&hp
Nearly 2,000 pieces of debris from the Sept. ii disaster, some weighing
tons, others
the size of a street sign, are being given away to towns across the country.
September 7, 2009 _ Submitted Into the public
Sept. 11 Steel Forms Heart of Far -Flung Memorials record in Connection With
item n A 5 on 99%69- 699
By MICHAEL WILSON Priscilla A. Thompson
City Clerk
Michael Nagle For Pie New York Times
Wreckage from 9/11, stored at Kennedy Airport, is being granted to groups around the country
When Jeff Cox, a 15 -year-old candidate for the rank of Eagle Scout in Windermere, Fla., approached
the small town's mayor with park improvement ideas to help earn a badge, the mayor informed him
that those projects were already covered.
"He cane back and said, 'Would the town like a memorial if I can get World Trade Center steel?' "
Mayor Gary Bruhn said. "I was stunned. I said, 'Son, the town would be elated to have something like
that.' He said, 'I think I need the town's support. I don't think they're going to just give it to me."'
No, they would not — but close. As the anniversary of the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, approaches on
Friday, pieces of the World Trade Center rubble from that day have never been more accessible. A
new campaign is under way to speed up the process and increase the volume of giving away pieces
of steel big and small from the debris.
The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which owns the steel, will invite police and fire
departments and mayors and other leaders of cities and towns throughout the country to ask for
pieces for memorials. The Port Authority has filled about 25 requests in the last year, and has about a
dozen more pending. In recent weeks, trucks have hauled twisted steel columns that weigh hundreds
of pounds to York, Pa., and Westerville, Ohio. A smaller piece was shipped to the Air Defense offices
of the United States Air Force in Rome, N.Y.
"The best way we can honor the memory of those we lost on 9/11 is to find homes in the W.T.C.
Memorial and in cities and towns around the nation for the hundreds of artifacts we've carefully
preserved over the years," said the Port Authority's executive director, Christopher O. Ward.
The Port Authority hopes to generate more interest in the steel with new advertisements in police, fire
and municipal trade magazines. There are 1,800 to 2,000 pieces, half of them very large, which are
available for carting away, at the recipient's expense. This does not include some 200 pieces, among
them the most familiar and iconic, that have been claimed by the National Sept. 11 Memorial and
Museum.
Among the pending requests are one from Las Vegas, where the Atomic Testing Museum wants a
79 -inch piece to fit in its custom-made case, and one from Eastern Kentucky University, which
requested a piece one and a half feet long. There is a also request from a group of fire departments
in France.
"The Saint -Etienne fire brigade would very much like to exhibit an artefact from the World Trade
Center in order to pay tribute to the victims, civilian and fire fighters of the 11th September attack,"
wrote Col. Yves Bussiere, of the regional fire department.
The pieces - some weighing tons, others little more than twisted sheets of metal the size of a street
sign — are stored at Hangar 17 at Kennedy International Airport. The 80,000 -square -foot hangar is
divided by several large plastic tents, where machines regulate the humidity so the steel doesn't rust.
In one tent, a New York City police car sits crumpled in the corner, as if tossed there.
Lee lelpi, president of the September 11 Families' Association, is sending letters to public safety
agencies offering artifacts. "Any bona fide city, town, county, state, corporations, other Countries,
France, Paris, Lyon, that would want a piece of steel, it would behoove us to accommodate them," he
said.
In the years immediately following the attacks, donations of 9/11 artifacts trickled out to various
entities, but the requests were not handled by a single organization, the Port Authority said. The
NO
agency requires a detailed description in each request of how the steel will be di 0n V on.
2 ftem on 0 -
Priscilla A. Thompsm
City Cteirk
cannot'receive artifacts, only cities or organizations. The requests that are pending supplied detailed
specifications for the pieces they want: "I am looking for an 'I' beam roughly 8' in length; however,
anything that we could have would mean more than words could ever express," wrote Lt. Michael L.
Zarella with the fire department of Mendon; Mass. He visited and chose the piece he wanted, a 10 -
foot -long hunk of steel "twisted like a party streamer," he said.
Requests for the steel must also be approved by Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein of Federal District Court,
who is overseeing the wrongful death lawsuits stemming from the attacks. While the steel is
considered potential evidence in those cases, tests on the steel were completed in 2005. The judge
has since granted all requests and has given no indication he will do otherwise for -the pending ones.
The requests are deferential. "All we need is a 1 -foot -by -1 -foot -by -4 -feet tall piece of steel," read a
letter from the mayor and the president of a memorial in Glens Falls, N.Y. "It's a small piece of steel
to fill our big hearts."
In Wichita, Kan., the Transportation Security Administration awaits shipment of a 600 -pound piece of
steel. Officials plan to chop it into eight pieces and display each piece in one of the state's airports.
"Most of these are really, really small airports," said Keith Osborn, the security director.
Steel will be displayed in two parks only about 20 miles apart in Ohio: one beside the Westerville Fire
Division Headquarters ("We plan on standing it up and have it facing in the same direction it was
when it was in New York, with the north side facing in the right direction," said a firefighter, Thomas C.
Ullom); the other in Hilliard, which selected three pieces. Both memorials will be called First
Responder Park.
On Friday, Jack Sommer, the president of Prospect Hill Cemetery in York, Pa., came to Hangar 17 to
collect a piece, watching as a cemetery employee strapped a chunk of steel, concrete and gnarled
rebar to a trailer. In an added flourish, the men had spread an American flag under the steel. A Port
Authority police car escorted them out.
In Windermere, a town of 3,000, the prospective Eagle Scout, Jeff Cox, got the mayor's support for
his project and was waiting for his steel. He was just 7 when the attacks took place. "I wasn't really
sure what the building was, but it kind of scared me," he said. "No one was really sure what was
going to happen."
He said he has been promised a big piece. "They sent me about six options to pick from," he said. "I
ended up taking part of a steel beam, about three and a half or four feet, 650 pounds."
Submitted Into the publtC.
recordyip connection with
5oq" -Oq
Priscilla A. Thompson
-- -- -__-- - _ City Clerk
3
Submitted Into tate public
record in connection with
itemon
Pots *Ha A. Thompson
City Clerk