World Trade Center steel comes to LI

They all want something to touch, something to evoke the loss.

In Long Island communities where casualties of the Sept. 11, 2001, attack came in multiples, twisted World Trade Center steel is providing a way to reconnect as the seminal event's 10th anniversary nears.

Dozens of pieces of steel from the Port Authority's formal distribution program have come to the region in recent months to be built into new and existing memorials. More organizations in Nassau and Suffolk, from churches to schools to firehouses, received the artifacts than any other counties nationwide.

"This puts it back in people's hands," said Michael Pena, director of the Brookhaven National Lab Protection Division, which got a 30-inch section of I-beam for a memorial. "It's more personal that way."

Pena, a retired FDNY lieutenant who responded to the attack, knows that well. Half of his Rescue 1 unit's 22 members were among the 2,753 people killed. Nearly 500 victims were from the Island.

Unlike monuments that are a wall of names or a statue, the steel-centered Sept. 11 memorials offer a tangible piece of an event that shook the communities' cores.

"It has the same effect on everybody," Brookhaven Lab Fire Chief Charles LaSalla said of the steel in storage pending a Sept. 9 memorial groundbreaking. "They're drawn to it."

Residents at last month's dedication of a new garden memorial in Plainview featuring a bent, 75-pound steel bar just wanted to touch it, according to Carol Meschkow, president of Concerned Citizens of the Plainview-Old Bethpage Community, a civic group that obtained the piece.

"To give this steel to the community as cherished pieces of history was absolutely the most sensitive thing," she said of the Port Authority.

More elaborate monument

While Plainview's memorial is meditative, with a pedestal near benches off Old Country Road, some Massapequa military veterans and first responders have more ambitious plans. Their 6-foot, 1,600-pound beam is to be part of a monument with a life-size soldier kneeling between a replica of the Twin Towers. Fundraising for $130,000 is under way.

"Having the steel from the building my brother passed away in, it's a connection," said Danny Cain, referring to FDNY firefighter and Massapequa native George Cain.

The 1,218 organizations receiving steel from the Port Authority include 39 in Suffolk and 37 in Nassau -- each more than all five boroughs of New York City, any county in New Jersey and all but three states.

Each group had to provide detailed memorial proposals and ensure their steel would be used for public display and not profit. Sections of metal range from 6 inches to 58 feet in length, and from several dozen pounds to seven tons.

Some organizations, such as FDNY, received multiple pieces. The Graystone Society in Coatesville, Pa., where Lukens Steel forged the Trade Center beams in 1969, received 500 tons for a large memorial.

A new approach

The wide range in size and use is unprecedented in the history of the nation's memorials, said Cal Snyder, author of "Out of Fire and Valor: The War Memorials of New York from the Revolution to 9/11."

"It's a very postmodern idea, that communities and individuals are free to recreate memory as they see it, without centralized control," he said.

The number of Sept. 11 memorials in greater New York reflects not just the proximity of the attack, but its personal nature, Snyder said. Fliers with photos of the dead and intense media coverage enabled strangers to relate to the victims, unlike those in a far-off war.

"People were actually able to feel their way right into the lives of these victims and recognize lives very much like their own," Snyder said.

Remnants of the World Trade Center have found their way to families and fire departments for years, taken in the chaotic early days. But about two years ago, after the National September 11 Memorial and Museum in Lower Manhattan selected the beams it desired, the Port Authority launched a program to distribute the rest.

Officials didn't expect so many requests for the 13,000 feet of steel kept in a Kennedy Airport hangar. Organizations in China and India applied. Firefighters from Ohio and Indiana made pilgrimages to haul pieces home, complete with honor guards.

"We ran out of steel," Port Authority spokesman Steve Coleman said.

Seaford High School, the alma mater of five Sept. 11 victims, built one of Nassau's first large memorials -- dedicated in November 2002. But it saw an opportunity to add meaning with a section of I-beam more than 3 feet long.

"It's the finishing touch," said athletic director Tom Condon, who coached, counseled or taught the fallen alumni.

Marine's mom secures piece

JoAnn Lyles of Sag Harbor formed the In Jordan's Honor foundation after her son, Marine Lance Cpl. Jordan Haerter, was killed in action in Ramadi, Iraq, in 2008. He was 19.

Lyles saw the authority program as a way to do more good in her son's name: Her piece will go to her village fire department's Sept. 11 and war memorial.

The attack "was one of his reasons for joining the Marines," Lyles said of Haerter, 13 when the Twin Towers fell.

In East Islip, the Chamber of Commerce plans to build a Sept. 11 memorial at the public library with an educational kiosk for children.

"We want students to . . . have an understanding of what actually happened," said chamber vice president Anthony D'Amico. But, as with most of Long Island's steel projects, there's a deep personal connection. A decade ago, D'Amico was a New York City police officer who responded to the World Trade Center.

"I probably went to 30 funerals," he recalled. "To me, getting this steel means a lot."