Posted on 10/31/2006 1:12:06 PM PST by presidio9
It's the only piece of the World Trade Center still standing where it was before terrorists destroyed the twin towers.
But the "survivors' staircase," a path to safety for countless workers on September 11th, 2001, will be moved -- to build one of five planned office towers on the site.
Preservationists, including a group that named the staircase one of America's most endangered places this year, are lobbying to keep the only standing remnant of the destroyed trade center complex where it is.
A final home for the The 21-foot-high, 350-thousand-pound staircase, which once connected an elevated plaza to a street north of the site, still isn't decided.
Historians had hoped it would be returned to the same spot where survivors of the terrorist attacks found it in a debris-filled plaza, following the stairs from a bridge to street level just before the second tower collapsed.
I think we need to keep it where it is. People will know exactly where they are and what was going on there on 9-11.
They already removed the WTC Cross for a second time a couple of weeks ago. I work across the street, and I spoke to a construction worker about it. She said that the City was claiming it would be returned as part of the permanent memorial, but since the Cross is not in the memorial's plans, this is BS.
Athiest groups in NY have been complaining about it for three years now. They successfully got it removed for a few weeks in '04 but the FDNY forced its return. It is doubtful that they will be able to do this again.
The staircase, and the cross are both important symbols of what happened that day, and of the resiliance that NYers showed in the aftermath. As usual, they will be swept under the rug in the interest of offending no one but white Christians. Those are the rules these days in this country.
Well, you can't really compare the two.
As Mass was celebrated every day under the cross until the cleanup was complete, in some ways the Cross has a lot more significance.
These are apples and oranges, and a discussion about preserving the staircase is not helped by a discussion about the cross.
Bzzt. Incorrect.
Also, the staircase is definitely not "the way it was."
IIRC, 14 of the 16 survivors where on that staircase. They were held up because they stopped to help an elderly secretary and thus in the right place at the right time to survive.
IMHO they should have kept the steel lattice that was standing after the attack.
It would have been a terrific centerpiece for a memorial.
CNN's Brian Palmer talks to one of the firefighters who was in one of the twin towers as it fell.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BRIAN PALMER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Bill Butler smiles and poses for a photographer, but at times like this, it doesn't come naturally. He was just about to go off-duty the morning of September 11.
BILL BUTLER, FIREFIGHTER: All of a sudden, there was a loud crash. And then smoke was coming up around the buildings here that block it. So we immediately knew that it had gone into the Trade Center.
PALMER: Butler and the firefighters of ladder company 6 sprinted into the North tower to rescue those trapped on the 80th floor.
BUTLER: We saw a shadow go over. And it was actually the second plane coming in to hit the second tower. And it was that point that my captain had come back and met up with us and said, "They're trying to kill us."
PALMER: As the streets outside were engulfed in fire, devastation and an erupting cloud of debris, people were fleeing the towers, filling the stairwells. As they headed down, Butler and ladder 6 kept going up the stairs of the North tower.
BUTLER: About every 10 floors, we would take a break. But all this while we're going up, we have people coming down. They were severely burned. And to a point where they had no clothes on. There were men taking their sport coats off, that were coming down, wrapping the women up, you know, so they would be -- you know, they could keep their privacy. And people were actually, you know, "Go get them, guys. God bless you guys. You're the best."
PALMER: When the other tower collapsed, the firefighters were ordered to evacuate, but they kept doing their job all the way down. On the 15th floor, Butler's job became helping an injured woman named Josephine to safety. She was exhausted already from hiking down 60 flights of stairs. They paused to encourage her.
BUTLER: So I said, "Do you have grandchildren?" And she said, "Yes, I do." And I said, "Well, Josephine," I said, "we need to get you out of here today and we need to get your -- your grandchildren want to see you at home tonight. We need to get your moving down these stairs."
PALMER: Then the north tower collapsed, miraculously around them, but not on top of them.
BUTLER: Her legs were weak. I mean, she was actually dipping down. I was carrying most of her weight probably.
PALMER: 11 of them were trapped in, but protected by a three story high pocket of mangled steel and crushed concrete.
BUTLER: We had no idea of the severity of the collapse at this point. We had no idea, you know, we're telling them that, you know, you come in the front door. You make a right. And our stairwells are like 50 to 100 feet away.
PALMER: Ladder 6 still didn't know the tower above them had disintegrated.
BUTLER: Well, at one point, the sun actually shined in. And it was this point that were able to see out. The smoke cleared. It was like the parting of the Red Sea.
PALMER: Butler called his wife from a fading cell phone.
BUTLER: I said, "Listen, don't cry right now." I said, "This is not the time to cry." And she kind of like bit her lip, I guess. And I said, "You need to make some phone calls for us."
PALMER: Those calls finally led rescuers to them almost five hours later. Butler can't explain why they survived, but the believe Josephine, the grandmother they had saved, had something to do with their survival.
BUTLER: Her pace just put us right in the right spot. I mean, had we been a little bit quicker, we may have been in the lobby and crushed in the lobby. Had we been a little bit slower, maybe we have still been on the 7th floor. And like I said, it only -- it collapsed below like the sixth floor.
Just so many different little factors took place that put us in that spot.
PALMER: One factor the firefighter leaves out gracefully, the courage that he and his men who were saved by a woman they were sent to rescue.
The beams, at least six feet high and four feet wide, were bolted together as part of the original structure. The edges of the beams bear no markings of being cut or welded to make the shape of a cross.
The most heart-wrenching discovery was that a silver object melted onto the cross' left side was the remains of a firefighter's jacket who died in the blast. Firefighters say the fire-resistant jacket turned silver and took on the look and consistency of metal when it encountered extreme heat and fire. Now, it is wrapped around the left arm of the cross.
Well, whatever-- the story is about the staircase, which, imo, should stay where it is.
This is not that staircase. The staircase being discussed here was outdoors and went from the street to the elevated WTC outdoor plaza.
I used to walk up it every day on my way to the ferry, to cut through the WFC by the water.
On 911, thousands of people moved down this staircase to get away from the hell zone.
OK, thanks for clearing that up.
As intimately familiar as I am with the structure of the office tower of the Murrah Federal Building, I am always disoriented when I visit the memorial. Why? Because nothing remains of the ill-fated building.
(Nowadays, I would almost need surveying equipment to locate the center of the crater, for example...)
the WTC cross should stay, too.
.
NEVER FORGET
The Man Who Predicted 9/11 =
9/11 Lifesaver RICK RESCORLA, ..R.I.P.
http://www.RickRescorla.com
http://www.RickRescorla.com/The%20Statue.htm
http://www.ArmchairGeneral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=24361
Signed:.."ALOHA RONNIE" Guyer
A Co-Veteran of RICK RESCORLA's Battle of IA DRANG-1965
http://www.lzxray.com/guyer_set1.htm
(1st Picture - Where RICK RESCORLA walked in Vietnam, exactly, 40 years ago)
.
Has nobody wondered out loud where a few dozen atheists get all this political muscle, that two or three million Catholic New Yorkers -- and that's just the Catholics -- can't get their arms around? As if none of the FDNY, NYPD, EMS, and NYPA people who died that day were Catholics, or Christians.
Sounds like it's time somebody called a guy who knows a guy.
There was no way they were ever going to keep the broken facade in the memorial. It would remind people that there was once a terrorist attack at this location. Liberals prefer referring to "the events of September 11." What were some of the events? A three-legged race? A dunking booth?
Check out the FDNY or NYPD or PAPD name log websites. Vitrually all of the cops and firemen were Irish or Italian.
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