WTC steel will become part of 9/11 Memorial Garden

One of the beams shows cuts made to free it from the debris. Photos by Tom Phelan.

The once very large presence of the World Trade Center will become an integral part of Enfield’s 9/11 Memorial Garden on Weymouth Road soon. Two steel beams that were once part of the north tower – the first one struck by the terrorist attack on Sept. 11, 2001 – arrived at the Enfield Fire Department Station 2 on Thursday, Feb 10.
The 9/11 Memorial Garden, constructed as a fitting tribute to firefighters, police, emergency responders and others who lost their lives at the WTC, has been the site of solemn memorials each year on Sept. 11 since the attack.
Each of the steel beams is about 18 feet in length and weighs 2,340 pounds. They were once structural components of the north tower’s north face, until the building collapsed about an hour and a half after being struck by the hijacked jetliner. The two pieces have been stored in a hangar at JFK International Airport, along with innumerable other artifacts of the tragedy, since the World Trade Center remnants were dismantled, according to Enfield Deputy Fire Chief Paul Januszewski.
A contingent of Enfield fire officials, including Januszewski, Fire Commissioner Scott Prentiss and Lt. Brian Ellis, a chairperson of the 9/11 Memorial Garden, accompanied the steel on its trip from New York to Enfield. Bosco's Automotive of Enfield transported the beams on a flatbed truck from the New York airport last Thursday morning.
“To be selected as one of the sites to receive these treasured items is a tremendous honor for the Enfield community," said fire commissioner Scott Prentiss, as the beams were being unloaded.
The JFK hangar contained more than steel beams. There were ambulances, fire trucks, a coroner’s truck, two train cars that had been trapped in the subway station, and countless other pieces, some very large and others small. By the end of the year, all will be distributed to those who have requested the artifacts from the somber collection. The Enfield contingent experienced a tour of the facility with the grim remains of the WTC attack.
There is no plan for how the steel will be incorporated into the Enfield 9/11 Memorial Garden. “Until today, we didn’t know what the columns were going to look like,” said Januszewski. The steel pieces are actually tubular square columns, looking remarkably like the shape of the two fallen towers. “We’re kind of looking at the possibility of using those as pillars to represent the towers,” he said.  “It may be very fitting to use them in that regard.”
The goal is to have the design, preservation work and integration with the memorial garden completed in time for the September 11, 2011 memorial ceremony.
Januszewski said a reception would be held at some future date to honor those people and groups who have supported Enfield’s 9/11 Memorial Garden.