56.0°,
A Few Clouds VFW working to create 9/11 memorial
WTC steel donated to Long Beach has been in storage since 2002
Matt Dwyer, a former communications director for the City of Long Beach, remembers seeing the smoke billowing from the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001.
The sky was so clear that Tuesday morning that people crowded West Bay Drive along Reynolds Channel, Dwyer recalled, and watched the tragedy unfold to the northwest, in Lower Manhattan.
“On that day, there were thousands of people standing along the bay, watching the towers burn in shock,” he said, “and they stood there into the night.”
Seven Long Beach residents died that day, and many firefighters and first responders from the area developed, and later died from, illnesses from working on “the pile.”
When the rescue and recovery turned to cleanup, Dwyer said, he was compelled to obtain pieces of the steel beams that had been carted away, in the hope of installing a memorial at Washington Boulevard and Bay Drive, where so many had gathered.
In 2002, Dwyer wrote a letter to then New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, on behalf of then City Manager Harold Porr. “We wanted a couple of pieces of steel that we could use for a memorial,” Dwyer said. ‘The idea was to set … two pieces with an eternal flame. It was going to be electric and surrounded by beach boulders, a solemn place where people could gather.”
Long Beach ultimately received three I-beams from the twin towers that were donated by New York City, he said, and developed plans for a memorial. One piece was cut in half, and half was given to Long Beach schools to use as a memorial, while the other half was placed in the lobby of City Hall.
But in 2003, a change in administrations left plans for the two remaining pieces in limbo, Dwyer said, and they have been sitting in a municipal garage ever since. In fact, he said, one of the beams seems to have been lost. In the years that followed, his attempts to create a memorial fell on deaf ears, he said.
“There were two big pieces of steel — one was four feet by 12 inches, and the other was three feet by 12,” he said. “They’ve been sitting in a municipal garage ever since, and have been moved around at times. Apparently, one cannot be identified, and may have been lost after [Hurricane Sandy].”
