Hundreds of people from the Eastern Michigan University and Ypsilanti communities gathered at Pease Park the afternoon of Sept. 11 to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the nation’s tragedy and welcome a memorial that arose from ground zero.
A14-foot long, 6,800-lb. piece of steel that originally served as a support beam in the center of the South World Trade Center Tower was transformed into an accessible memorial and unveiled on EMU campus.
The special afternoon ceremony started with inspirational speeches from several faculty members at Eastern, including Student Government President Jelani McGadney.
“We should look back at this chapter in history and push on,” McGadney told the crowd. “After 9/11, it was 9/12. After day, it was night. And after we fell, we got back up.”
McGadney spoke to almost 400 people who gathered at Pease Park (next to Washtenaw Avenue) along with EMU’s President Susan Martin, Executive Director of Media Relations Geoff Larcom, Congressman John Dingell and Washtenaw County Sheriff Jerry Clayton.
All conveyed a solemn yet honorable message in remembrance of those who lost their lives during the attacks—the same significance those who created the memorial wanted to convey.
“Courage — I cannot think of a better word to describe those first responders… who entered the towers and did not return,” Clayton said.
The memorial hit close to home for freshman Marisa Kouba, whose father, Mike, is a lieutenant in Ypsilanti’s fire department.
“If anything happened to my dad, I’d be a mess,” Kouba said. “Something could happen to him and I’d be in the same shoes as all these other victims’ families. So to me, this represents whom and what you’ve got to appreciate in your life before it’s too late.”
The meaning varied for everyone in the audience that day. Presuming such an occurrence, the design crew spent weeks observing the steel and ruling out designs and locations until it satisfied their vision.
“The more we kept looking, the more we found,” senior Adam Janesz, a student that was a part of the design process, said. “And almost immediately, we knew that this was going to require a special amount of attention.”
Janesz worked with at least nine others including John Donegan, Chief of Operations at EMU’s Physical Plant, and workers involved in the construction of Eastern’s Mark Jefferson building for weeks before deciding on the final arrangement.
Originally, two tall metal pieces were supposed to be placed near Halle Library with the 9/11 artifact suspended above ground on an angle, according to Janesz. Instead, the design team wanted to aim for something more humble.
“It speaks for itself,” Janesz said. “We didn’t want some huge thing with glass or anything like that to take away from it. We wanted people to touch it, look at it, experience it… The fact the plans changed from Halle to here is testament of how many people were involved.”
President Martin, who was also involved in the making of the memorial, was concerned with location.
“We looked at a monument versus a memorial, first off,” Martin said. “And decided it needed to be accessible so people could reflect on it, but not in a busy part of campus where it could possibly remind someone of negative emotions.”
Martin said the site is still under construction, but when it’s finished, a sidewalk will be leading up to the memorial’s concrete base and steps and a wheelchair ramp for viewing will be added behind it. Pease Park as a whole will also undergo special improvements.
After the speeches, viewers wasted no time in approaching the beam. Hands of visitors were placed on the steel as Donegan, who transported the beam from New York’s JFK International Airport to Ypsilanti, pointed out its characteristics and answered questions.
A column of that size, according to Donegan who consulted various iron and construction workers on campus, probably would have come from the middle of a building. Traces of the word ‘south,’ and number ’74,’ prove it was mounted on the 74th floor of the South Tower — the second of the Twin Towers to be completed, the second to be hit by a plane and the first to be destroyed.
For the first time, Janesz, who spent weeks observing the steel, was able to see the bottom side.
“We always had it sitting differently,” Janesz said as he pointed details out. “It’s incredible how many markings are still visible despite the power of heat and flame.”
Dongean brought attention to the tears in the metal. The beam, in its original form, is thought to have been 25-30 ft. long. After the metal reached its boiling point, it probably bent over and tore off. Despite the gouges, it remains one of the largest 9/11 artifacts to be donated to a qualifying establishment; Martin said Eastern is fortunate to have received it.
Roughly 2,000 requests were made for the 1,300 artifacts salvaged. A year after Martin wrote a letter in response to an article she read on the whereabouts of the wreckage, she finally received the email she had almost given up on waiting for.
“I had no idea what size it would be, but when I heard we were chosen to have one, we didn’t waste any time,” Martin said.
Donegan and Kevin Abbasse, a retired fire marshal, drove 15 hours to retrieve it and present it to Eastern where it has begun to influence visitors.
“It brings back a lot of memories,” John Roe, who has been with the Ypsilanti Fire Department for 25 years, said.
He arrived at ground zero on the third day after the attacks where he worked for a week with a brother officer. The team transferred dirt from the ruins to buckets for 2 ½ days in hopes of finding survivors.
“There was a lot of stoppage,” Roe said. “If we heard something, they’d bring the dogs in to try and smell someone. We’d wait for about 10 minutes and continue on.”
Pushing the pain aside, Roe said the memorial was a true representation of what the surrounding communities need; the same message Dingell delivered to gatherers in Pease Park.
“This monument helps us rededicate something that is important,” Dingell said. “We are many and diverse… We must grow together and remain together.”
