Posted on 12/19/2003 12:54:27 PM PST by presidio9
There are no planes behind the mammoth locked doors of Hangar 17 at Kennedy International Airport. Instead, it hides history.
This is where a 100-foot-tall by 100-foot-wide section of the lower facade of the north tower — the infamous Gothic arches — is kept, disassembled into 25 pieces weighing 80,000 pounds apiece. Laid out on the floor are the crumpled remains of the north tower antenna. Parked in one corner is an assortment of crushed fire trucks. Here rests the last column removed from ground zero, complete with the graffiti from firefighters and ironworkers who recovered victims and cleaned the site.
This is the collection of 700 or so World Trade Center relics that the finalists in the design competition for the trade center memorial have, for the most part, decided to ignore. This too is the collection, according to some prominent conservationists, that the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, after going to great extremes to preserve, is now allowing to rapidly and permanently degrade because of deficiencies in temperature and humidity control.
Rust is eating away at the twisted beams. Crushed fire trucks are corroding. Flakes are falling from the last column pulled from ground zero.
"This is a textbook example of how bad storage conditions can affect the preservation of an object," said Tom Chase, president of the American Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works, and a specialist in the conservation of metals. "It is just awful."
Port Authority officials defend the effort to preserve these objects and encourage their use in any permanent memorial or museum. The objects, they say, are being treated with respect. "We absolutely want to preserve these objects for future generations to be able to recall what happened on Sept. 11," said Steve Coleman, a Port Authority spokesman.
The most critical step, Port Authority and some museum officials in New York say, is that these items were collected and placed inside a hangar.
"It showed great foresight to set many of those items aside," said Mark A. Schaming, director of exhibitions and public programs at the New York State Museum, which has its own much smaller collection of trade center objects. "They have done a great job."
What is unmistakable is the enormous, immutable power that emanates from these inanimate objects stored below giant American flags hung on the walls at Hangar 17. It is a force that, for the rare visitor, causes almost instantaneous discomfort and reflective pause.
"It is not just a hangar filled with stuff," said Joseph Galati, a heating contractor who was so disturbed by what he saw when he visited the hangar that he had to leave. "You can sense the people who were never found. It feels like holy ground."
In the eyes of some prominent architects, critics and historians, the various waterfalls, reflecting pools and marble walls in the finalists' designs for a World Trade Center memorial carry none of the power of these raw objects.
"The eight finalists are using materials that could be in hotel lobbies or corporate plazas," said Gavriel D. Rosenfeld, an assistant professor of history at Fairfield University in Connecticut and the author of "Munich and Memory: Architecture, Monuments, and the Legacy of the Third Reich." "When you turn to art to commemorate something this dramatic, it ends up diminishing the horror and distancing one from the actual authenticity of the event."
The Port Authority's collection has been meticulously cataloged, with the dimensions and weight of each major item recorded, and each with its own number, visible on tags in the 80,000-square-foot storage area. B-3177 is a turnstile from the World Trade Center PATH station. B-3101 is a motor from one of the twin towers' giant elevators that once lifted office workers into the sky. F-3001 is a bicycle rack, complete with seven abandoned bikes. Tires are blown out and rims are twisted, but a silver and blue helmet is still locked to the Crossroads Specialized bike.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Are there any images..at all..that exist of this monumental event, and if so, why have they not gone public?
This enquiring mind STILL wants to know.
It's all a plot!
Your tinfoil hat is a bit too tight.
Were I a relative of any victims of the event, I'm sure that your implied slam would seem justified. I'm merely asking for any scientific (Photographic eveidence) exists that I have not been made aware of. Apparently, your'e not in posession of such eveidence, so carry on with your persuit of demeaning my character.
"'I was in the left hand lane with my windows closed. I did not hear anything at all until the plane was just right above our cars.' [Father Stephen] McGraw estimates that the plane passed about 20 feet over his car, as he waited in the left hand lane of the road, on the side closest to the Pentagon.
'The plane clipped the top of a light pole just before it got to us, injuring a taxi driver, whose taxi was just a few feet away from my car.' 'I saw it crash into the building,' he said. 'My only memories really were that it looked like a plane coming in for a landing. I mean in the sense that it was controlled and sort of straight. That was my impression,' he said." (Paul Haring, MDW News Service)
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"'I was right underneath the plane,' said Kirk Milburn, a construction supervisor for Atlantis Co., who was on the Arlington National Cemetery exit of Interstate 395 when he said he saw the plane heading for the Pentagon. 'I heard a plane. I saw it. I saw debris flying. I guess it was hitting light poles,' said Milburn. 'It was like a WHOOOSH whoosh, then there was fire and smoke, then I heard a second explosion.'" (Washington Post)
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"'(The plane) was flying fast and low and the Pentagon was the obvious target,' said Fred Gaskins, who was driving to his job as a national editor at USA TODAY near the Pentagon when the plane passed about 150 feet overhead. 'It was flying very smoothly and calmly, without any hint that anything was wrong.'" (USA Today)
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"AP reporter Dave Winslow also saw the crash. He said, 'I saw the tail of a large airliner ... It ploughed right into the Pentagon.'" (The Guardian)
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For my part, it just defies logic to deny the existence of the plane that hit the pentagon. Four planes were known hijacked. People on board the planes made phone calls confirming the hijackings. Two of those planes hit the World Trade Towers. A third hit the pentagon. The fourth crashed in Pennsylvania.
There is no way a rational person could deny the reality of the situation. I don't even know what purpose is served in trying to deny the truth.
It angers me to think that there are people on this board who are so unable to face the truth that they are willing to believe a completely counterfactual theory before the readily apparent truth.
Barbara Olson is dead. All the people on flight 77 are dead. I have a personal acquaintance who witnessed the plane heading for the pentagon.
It happened. Deal with the truth.
As I mentioned earlier, the Pentagon is regarded as one of the most heavily survielled buildings in the world (entry points, exit routes, and satellite imagry 24/7.
Pardon my apparent tin foil induced curiosity,but it sems to me that perhaps one of the civilian or governmental imagry devices just might have caught that breech of security. Sure had plenty of images of the WTC impacts (civilian/Network/private surviellence sources.)
Common event, you say. Not as common as you assert...it's the only time it has occurred. Oh yes, I forgot about my tin foil hat falling round my eyes blurring my ability to disseminate pertinant intel provided.
Sorry I asked.
Thank you for your useful information that I can now put to some use.
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