Tunnel to Towers Marks 25th Anniversary With Cross-Country Steel Beam Tour

With the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks on the horizon, the Tunnel to Towers Foundation has embarked on a nationwide tour carrying a steel beam weighing 16,000 pounds that was salvaged from the World Trade Center site, bringing it to towns and cities throughout the United States — including a recent stop on Long Island.

The "Steel Across America" tour began in Lower Manhattan and is set to visit more than 35 locations in 21 states, logging over 10,500 miles before the beam is returned to Ground Zero on Sept. 11. On May 4, it arrived at the Lt. Michael P. Murphy Navy SEAL Museum in West Sayville, where community members gathered to hear accounts of the attacks and the military sacrifices that came in their aftermath.

The museum's executive director, Chris Wyllie — himself a retired Navy SEAL — spoke about how the events of Sept. 11 drove an entire generation to join the armed forces, among them Lt. Michael P. Murphy. Murphy flew a patch from FDNY Engine 53/Ladder 43 on his missions in Afghanistan as a tribute to the firefighters who perished that day. He was killed in action on June 28, 2005.

Separately, a retired FDNY battalion chief from Plainview, Nassau County, has devoted five years to building handmade memorials honoring colleagues from his years of service. John Ricketts, who spent weeks laboring over the still-smoldering debris at Ground Zero following the attacks, has constructed 78 scale models of the Twin Towers, each housing a small fragment of steel from the site. He has given 65 of those models to surviving firefighters, to the families of victims killed on Sept. 11, and to the families of those who have since died from related illnesses. He hopes to distribute the final 13 before Christmas.

Tunnel to Towers Foundation chairman Frank Siller said the tour is aimed squarely at the generations that were too young to remember that morning. "No one, regardless of their age or where they live, should ever forget what happened here or the bravery that was shown by so many heroes," Siller said.

The foundation's annual Tunnel to Towers 5K Run & Walk NYC, which retraces the path of firefighter Stephen Siller through what is now the Hugh L. Carey Tunnel toward the World Trade Center, will also serve as part of the anniversary commemoration.