Sign the Beam in Tribute


Add your name to steel beams that will be used in the construction of the Memorial & Museum.  Steel beams traveled around the country through 25 states last year, gathering tens of thousands of signatures as part of the September 11 Tribute Exhibition.  You will also have an opportunity to share your thoughts and reflections about 9/11 through “Notes of Hope.”  These messages will be preserved in the Memorial Museum archives.

September 4 - NFL Season Opening Game
NY Giants vs. Washington Redskins
Meadowlands-Outside Gate D
4:00 p.m. - 8:00 p.m.

September 10 & 11 - Battery Park, New York
Battery Place between Greenwich Street and Washington Street
10:00 a.m. -  7:00 p.m.

September 14 - NY Jets Home Opening Game-TBC
NY Jets vs. New England Patriots
Meadowlands-Outside Gate D
2:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m.

NYC Fire Museum

At 1 p.m., the New York City Fire Museum will unveil a dagger made by the Armourer to the Queen of England from World Trade Center steel and donated to the FDNY. The annual commemoration ceremony at the Firefighter’s Memorial will also include the laying of a wreath for the 343 firefighters who made the ultimate sacrifice on September 11, 2001 by the Chief of the Fire Department.

September 11 Remembrance at Trinity Church

Attend a ceremony of remembrance at the historic Trinity Church. At 8:46 AM, the church bells will toll in honor of those who died on September 11, 2001. A Eucharist for Peace service will take place from 12:05-12:45PM. An Evensong service of remembrance through readings and song will be held from 5:15-5:45PM.

The September Concerts

The September Concerts are a series of free concerts held in locations around New York City and around the world to fill the skies with music every September 11th. In 2007, more than 100 concerts were held in New York City. For 2008, concert venues will include Central Park, the New York Public Library, the 42nd Street subway station, Rockefeller Center, Washington Square Park, the World Financial Center, and many more.

Pentagon to Dedicate 9/11 Memorial

             Secretary of Defense Robert Gates will host a ceremony on Sept. 11, 2008, to dedicate the Pentagon Memorial to the memory of those killed in the terrorist attack here in 2001.  The ceremony itself is an invitation only / ticketed event. The ceremony begins at 8 a.m EDT and is expected to last for approximately two hours.

            The memorial was built along the southwestern corner of the Pentagon and is the first national memorial to those killed on Sept 11, to be dedicated. The memorial consists of 184 individual memorial units honoring the 59 people aboard American Airlines Flight 77 and the 125 in the Pentagon who lost their lives at 9:37 a.m. on Sept. 11, 2001.

The focus of the memorial is 184 cantilevered benches built over a pool of lighted water. Each bench is engraved on the end with the name of one of the 184 people who died on board Flight 77 or in the Pentagon that day. The benches are arranged by age, with the bench of the youngest victim, 3-year-old Dana Falkenberg, in the far southeast corner and the bench honoring 71-year-old John Yamnicky in the northwest corner.

The benches for the 59 victims on board the plane are arranged so that someone reading the name on the end of the bench will face the sky where the plane came from. The 125 benches for the victims inside the Pentagon face the opposite direction, so someone reading the name will look up and see the south facade of the Pentagon, where the jet hit that day.

Some of the original plans have changed since construction started in June 2006. Originally, the benches were to be made of aluminum. But aluminum can oxidize, leaving pits and white residue. The builders chose to use marine-grade stainless steel, which won't rust and can withstand the elements. The benches are inlaid with black and gold granite mined in Spain and cut in Canada. A perimeter wall around the park is built of the same Spanish granite. Black granite was originally chosen for the top of a perimeter wall around the park, but builders learned the hard way that on warm and sunny days, the black granite gets too hot.

A cross made of steel from the World Trade Center and mounted on top of a platform shaped like The Pentagon now stands outside the firehouse in Shanksville, Pennsylvania - forever linking the tragic events of 9/11. The 2-ton, 14-foot beam, was pulled from the rubble of the north tower.

Hundreds of firefighters riding motorcycles escorted the beam from New York to Shanksville, where hijacked Flight 93 crashed into a field, killing all 40 people onboard. The members of the New York City Fire Riders joined a larger group that included bikers from as far away as Georgia. The beam rode on a flatbed truck. They left about 7 a.m. Saturday from Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn en route to Shanksville, Pa., where the memorial will be built next to the local volunteer fire company. The convoy crossed the Staten Island Expressway shortly after leaving Brooklyn. Two antique fire trucks, owned by Staten Islanders, also participated.

As twilight falls on Wednesday September 10th, 2008 the skies over Lower Manhattan will once again be pierced by the twin beams of the Tribute in Light.

The Tribute in Light was first illuminated on March 11, 2002, six months after the terrorist attack. It was designed by John Bennett, Gustavo Bonevardi, Richard Nash Gould, Julian LaVerdiere and Paul Myoda, working with Paul Marantz, a lighting designer, and Michael Ahern, an event producer. It ran for a month. Sept. 11, 2003, marked its next appearance. It has been illuminated for one night on each anniversary since. In 2004, the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation authorized $3.5 million to run the tribute through 2008. That allowed the Municipal Art Society to purchase 88 Space Cannon searchlights, each four feet tall, with a 7,000-watt xenon bulb. They sit inside boxy steel frames, allowing them to be stacked for storage. The fixtures, powered by temporary generators, are set out on the garage roof in two 50-by-50-foot squares, offset from each other as the twin towers were, though covering only 6 percent of the towers’ area. The array is as ungainly to behold at close range as it is ethereal to see from afar.

The project may run out of money after 2008. It may lose its current staging area atop the Battery Garage, six blocks south of ground zero; a rare expanse of secure open space downtown. A long-range redevelopment plan for the nearby area, known as Greenwich Street South, calls for demolishing the garage, though this is not on the immediate horizon. There is no guarantee that it will have a permanent home at the World Trade Center memorial, which is to open in 2009. This situation needs to be addressed !!!!!