LBFD members rebuild vandalized 9/11 memorial

Long Beach firefighters helped rebuild a vandalized 9/11 memorial in the West End on Sunday. Photos by Joseph Kellard

Joseph Kellard

Resident Bill Murphy installed the flag pole on a reconstructed 9/11 Memorial that he built and maintains at Oceanview and California Street in the West End.

Photos by Joseph Kellard

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Bill Murphy, who built and maintained a September 11 memorial on Oceanview yards from his California Street home, noticed early Saturday that the metal frame that holds a flagpole was torn from the memorial’s base and thrown in the street.

A team of Long Beach firefighters reconstructed the damaged memorial on Sunday. When Edward Langdon, 2nd lieutenant of the Long Beach Fire Department, learned of the vandalism on Facebook, he sprung into action. After participating in a holiday parade in the West End on Saturday, he inspected the vandalized memorial and went to work.

“I knew it couldn’t be fixed, so a bunch of us went to Home Depot, got the materials and were working all through the night, until about five a.m.,” said Langdon, a union carpenter in New York City.

More than a dozen firefighters and neighbors worked for about an hour Sunday morning to install new brackets and a wooden stool-like buoy on the memorial base, a large city-owned planter that serves to obstruct traffic on Oceanview. When the job was completed, Murphy climbed a ladder about 15 feet high to re-install the pole that bears an American flag.

“It brought tears to my eyes,” said Murphy, 77, a retired construction worker. “I’m very grateful to everyone who participated; they did a fabulous job. God bless them all.”

Murphy turned the planter into a memorial soon after he learned a neighbor’s daughter was killed in the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center. He painted the planter, installed the flag pole, encased a September 11 remembrance flag on the base, and posted a photo of a silhouetted Manhattan skyline with the Twin Towers.

Murphy adorns the memorial with plants or flowers and decorations appropriate to every season or each major holiday. For the Christmas season, he lined it with potted poinsettias and evergreen branches and red ribbons and tinsel.

“I check it every day to make sure it’s OK,” he said.