The World Trade Center staircase that helped a lot of
survivors escape on 11th of September 2001 was removed today, in New
York.
A group of survivors joined city officials Sunday to watch
construction workers planting an American flag on the staircase. Then the
65-ton structure was lifted by a crane and placed on a flatbed.
It is the first time the last remnant of the World Trade
Center is moved from its place since Sept.11, 2001. The stairs’ relocation
begins a new stage in the rebuilding of Lower Manhattan. As the relic is
supposed to become part of the World Trade Center memorial and Museum, the
workers and machinery had to move carefully around it, not to cause any damage.
But that problem was solved when the stair was moved.
The staircase was placed opposite a park outside 7 World
Trade Center, about 200 feet north of its original location, and will remain
there until the end of the summer.
Then it will be moved again to the western side of the trade
center site and lowered 70 feet, to where the National Sept.11 Memorial and
Museum will be built, said Joseph C. Daniels, the museum’s president, according
to The New York Times.
Mr. Tom Canavan, 48, one of the survivors on Sept.11,
describes how the 37-step staircase saved his life. He said he was working on
the 47th floor of the north tower when the hijacked plane hit the
tower. He tried to flee, but was buried by debris from the the south tower’s
collapse. His only escape was the stairway on Vesey Street.
“By the time I tunneled my way out, to the plaza,” he said
on Sunday. “The only way I could get out was through the stairway on Vesey
Street. It is just a stairway, but it means something. Hundreds if not
thousands of people were ahead of me,” added Canavan, who lost his fingernails
and suffered several burns, in his way to the staircase.
Avi Shick, chairman of the Lower Manhattan Development
Corp., said the initial plan was to keep only a few steps and demolish the rest
of the relic, but as that idea angered many survivors, city officials decided
to preserve the whole structure.
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