chapter 298

WTC 

11/7/2012

New York New York

When is a broken wheel just a broken wheel. NOT when it is from the landing gear of a Boeing 767 that crashed into one of the towers of the World Trade Center. NOT when it had just previously transported some 300 passengers safely on take off from Boston Logan Airport. It makes you think. This is part of the emotionally moving WTC exhibit that has been at the NYS Museum in Albany for several years. NY is an important place in the U.S. and the world, but it has certainly had a rough decade.

 The entrance to our exhibit displays this tattered flag from the buildings that fell on 9/11/2001. You can feel the reverence as if you are entering sacred ground here. 

  This 36 foot bent and mangled structural steel column is from the north face of Tower 1 about 20 floors below the impact of Flight 11. The the steel members had been marked during construction allowing for distinct identification. Normally, I avoid getting tourists in a shot, but perhaps this one is symbolic.

 Perhaps the most moving display is of this firefighter recorded in an interview just a short while after the event. I cannot do justice to even attempt to paraphrase his comments as with the burned out firetruck in the backdrop.

 Normally I don't want to do this sort of chapter so I'll end on a happier note. The exhibit is part of the metropolitan section of the museum and just outside is this interesting looking cast iron cartouche from the 1930's as part of the signs for the elevated Westside Highway. Stylized eagles and gears symbolic of the burgeoning American industrial revolution.  

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