http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2009...te_monday.html
'Last Column's' return: Beam that became 9/11 memorial comes back to WTC site Monday
Rendering of the last column, which was removed from the World Trade Center, at the site of the museum at the World Trade Center.
BY Doug Feiden
August 21st 2009
The last soaring column that stood proud at the World Trade Center after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks - and became a beloved symbol of defiance in the face of terror - is finally coming home.
After more than seven years in a hangar at Kennedy Airport, the mighty steel beam - emblazoned with engine company and police precinct insignias - will be returned to Ground Zero on Monday, the Daily News has learned.
The 58-ton, 36-foot-tall column is so gargantuan in size that its permanent new home, the National Sept. 11 Memorial & Museum, will literally be erected around it, officials in charge of the rebuilding say.
"What makes the Last Column so powerful and authentic is that it was the most makeshift of all the memorials as people spontaneously left firehouse patches, police logos and union stickers to honor the victims," said Museum President Joe Daniels.
Visitors to the subterranean museum will see the shorthand of mourners, who marked their losses in industrial spray paint: "PAPD 37," at the very top, refers to the number of Port Authority cops massacred.
"NYPD 23" and "FDNY 343" recalls the Finest and Bravest who gave their lives.
"This is ultimately a sign of rebirth," said Port Authority Executive Director Chris Ward.
"We are bringing back the Last Column of the old World Trade Center as we erect the first columns of the new World Trade Center."
Officially identified as Column 1001-B, the steel beam, one of 47 that held up the South Tower, was quickly plastered with Mass cards, rosary beads, flags, photos of missing innocents, letters from children to parents who would never be coming home.
"It's a girder like no other girder on Earth," said Jimmy Hurley, 57, an ironworker from Staten Island who watched as it was cut down on May 28, 2002, marking the end to the world's most heart-wrenching recovery effort.
"It's an icon where loving remembrances were left for lost loved ones," said Lou Mendes, a former top city official who ran clean-up operations.
After an eight-month effort to cart away 1.8 million tons of rubble, the Last Column was carried off the site to the skirl of bagpipes playing "Amazing Grace."
Preservationists lovingly restored it, as if it were a Rembrandt, in JFK's Hangar 17.
Swaddled in plastic and covered in a giant climate-controlled box, it will be quietly returned to the site at sunrise Monday with a police and fire escort.