Small towns join movement for 9/11 memorials

The principal images from Sept. 11, 2001, are of urban skyscrapers and government buildings, but rural America has also taken an active role in remembering the national tragedy. Pieces of steel from the World Trade Center have been made available to cities, towns and organizations across the country, Michael Wilson of The New York Times reports. Communities like Windermere, Fla.; York, Pa.; Westerville, Ohio; and Richmond, Ky., have already placed requests with the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey for a piece of steel for their own 9/11 memorial. (Times photo by Michael Nagle)

Available are 1,800 to 2,000 artifacts, from small ones like the 18-inch-long piece requested by Eastern Kentucky University to the 600-pound piece requested by Wichita, Kan. The Port Authority requires a detailed description of how the piece will be used, and the federal judge overseeing the wrongful-death lawsuits from the attacks must approve each request.


"The best way we can honor the memory of those we lost on 9/11 is to find homes in the W.T.C. Memorial and in cities and towns around the nation for the hundreds of artifacts we’ve carefully preserved over the years,” Port Authority Executive Director Christopher Ward told Wilson. The Sept. 11 Families' Association has also said that it would behoove them to accommodate any "bona fide city, town, county, state, corporations or other countries" that would like a piece of steel. (Read more)

Lincoln High School in Vincennes, Ind., was chosen as one of the pilot schools for a 9/11 history curriculum developed by Anthony Gardner, whose brother died in the World Trade Center's North Tower, but the material isn't having a profound affect on Lincoln High students, Eli Saslow of The Washington Post reports. He writes: "Eight years later, this is an example of what Sept. 11, 2001, has become for a generation that's too young to remember much, if anything, about that day: It is an educational DVD, a 167-page textbook, a black binder of class handouts titled 'A National Interdisciplinary Curriculum'." (Read more)