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Merrick Life • Bellmore Life • Freeport-Baldwin Leader • Wantagh-Seaford Citizen

FOREVER IN THEIR HEARTS: From left, ex-North Bellmore Fire Chief Angelo Catalano, North Bellmore Fire Chief Ed Kraus, firefighter John Scalesi,  firefighter Sean Corcoran, ex-North Bellmore Fire Chief Arthur White, firefighter Joseph Vinciguerra, firefigher Mo Motamedian and resident Edward Vinceguerra pose after installing an authentic piece of the World Trade Center – shaped like the twin towers – at their memorial plaza. The structure is placed to remember all who perished on 9/11. Bellmore Life photos by Douglas FInlay

“This is the perfect piece,” said North Bellmore resident Ed Vinciguerra.
   
“When our firefighters come out of the bays to go to a fire, they will look over and it will remind them of what this job is all about,” added North Bellmore Chief Ed Kraus.

   
What both described with a deep  emotion is the piece of steel from the World Trade Center that was installed last week at the North Bellmore Fire Department’s new Fire Department Plaza triangle.
   
The World Trade Center steel will be the centerpiece of a 9/11 memorial to  be held at the plaza on September 11.
   
The five-ton piece, which looks like the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center, is the culmination of two years of work begun by the fire department to memorialize – on the 10th anniversary of the day that shook the world – those who lost their lives in the World Trade Center collapse.       

While the North Bellmore Fire Department lost no firefighters that day, “This is really a tribute to all of those who were lost on 9/11,” Chief Kraus said of the moving memorial.

Said ex-Chief Arthur White after the last bolt had been screwed down to secure the base, “This is a moving moment, it’s why we did this.”

Rooms full of history
The Twin-Tower shaped piece of World Trade Center steel was one of roughly 1,200 pieces of steel from the collapse that became available from the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey over two years ago.
   
Mr. Vinciguerra, who is the structural maintenance engineer for the Port Authority, said the authority obtained the steel and wanted to provide communities with opportunities to take possession of the historical structures.
   
“Once we sent word out around the country, we began to receive letters from fire departments, police departments and schools that wanted to receive the available structures,” he said.
   
He said that, while starting with some 1,200 pieces, there are now fewer than 300 pieces left.
   
He said the process to own a piece of World Trade Center steel is a detailed one, involving several months of processing – and approval by the courts.
   
“Every piece in the facility has to be accounted for, and then signed off by the courts for recording purposes,” he said, so there will be a record of everywhere the structures went.
   
To be sure, “There are no private owners,” he said.
   
He said that WTC structures have made their way to Pompeii, Italy, to Germany, to every state in the country and to several other countries around  the world – and to Brookside School in North Merrick.
   
Chief Kraus – who revealed that Adam Rand and Kevin Prior of the Bellmore Fire Department who died on 9/11 were his friends and mentors –  said that the fire department came into possession of two steel structures of the World Trade Center, and believes that the department has placed the structures strategically to promote North Bellmore’s compassion and remembrance of those who lost their lives on September 11.
   
“One has been placed at the Smithville facility so that those who enter North Bellmore from the south on Newbridge Road will see the structure.”
   
Those entering North Bellmore from the north will see the twin-towers structure at the triangle at Newbridge Road and East Meadow Avenue.
   
Ex-Chief Angelo Catalano, current supervisor of the Nassau County Fire Museum on Museum Row in Garden City,  said of the Twin-Towers structure, “I love it, it’s a part of history and it will always serve as a remembrance of those we lost” in the community. 
   
In preparing the Twin-Towers structure for installation, the North Bellmore Fire Department wished to thank Bellmore Steel for the installation plates at the bottom of the structure, and to Bellmore Towing and AAA for the tow truck needed to move the structure from the firehouse to its resting place at the plaza.
   
The World Trade Center steel will be commemorated on Sunday, September 11, at 10:30 a.m.

By Doug Finlay

Doug Finlay is the assistant editor for Bellmore Life newspaper. He is also an award-winning writer for L&M Publications.