Contributed by Prince William County
Photo credit: Prince William County
After a period of painstaking restoration work beginning in June, and another couple of months of behind the scenes planning and preparation construction, the four steel beams from the World Trade Center now stand on the ellipse between the Sean T. Connaughton Plaza and the 9-11 Liberty Memorial at the Prince William County Government Complex.
Brendon Hanafin, the County’s Historic Preservation Division Chief, said there were a lot of “moving parts” that had to come together to meet the Sept. 11 project deadline. Everything from the conservation, permitting and design work to concrete footer installation and utility placement had to come together before the plan fell into place. “There are a lot of different pieces to a project like this.”
Three of the beams that create the 22-foot-tall monument stand clustered, leaning together at angles, to depict the chaos of the fallen towers. A fourth beam stands upright, apart from the others, to testify to the certainty of American resilience, according to Martin Santini, the New Jersey architect who designed the monument.
Santini said the ellipse is an appropriate place for the memorial since location offers access that might be absent at any other site. ”I think people should touch it and have a connection to it. It’s the most earth shaking event that we’ve ever experienced in our lifetime.”
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