Tributes to 9/11/01 What you are about to view are materials that were created over the past 10 years to commemorate 9/11. In the aftermath of the attacks, many individuals and communities in our country came together and leaned on each other for support. Many even produced memorials as a part of the grieving, healing, recovery, and rebuilding process.

Please take your time viewing each of the memorials on this slideshow and reading the captions that accompany them.

The “Dear Hero” Collection Not long after the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, firehouses and police stations throughout NYC began receiving an abundance of letters with heartfelt messages, cards, flags, murals, quilts addressed to the “Heroes at Ground Zero.” These letters were mostly from children who witnessed the attacks on TV or in their classrooms and wanted to show their support and gratitude. Tanya Hoggard (pictured right), learned about the correspondence and decided to collect and safeguard these expressions. Little did she know she would soon collect 3 tons (around 6,000 lbs) of correspondence! Hoggard devoted 8 years to documenting her mission and has donated the collection to the 9/11 Memorial Museum.

“Dear Hero” continued…

Lady Liberty In the weeks and months following the attacks, a replica of the Statue of Liberty appeared outside a NYC firehouse, Engine 54/Ladder 4/Battalion 9, on 8 th Avenue and 48 th Street. To this day, no one knows how the fiberglass replica arrived there, but before long it inspired an ongoing ornamentation with personal messages and heartfelt tributes contributed by the general public. Today this Lady Liberty stands covered from head to toe with “uniform patches, miniature rosary beads, condolence notes, souvenir postcards, angel figurines and other mementos left by mourners and passersby. It now rests at the 9/11 Memorial Museum in memory of the firefighters of Engine 54/Ladder 4/Battalion 9 and the 9 men killed at the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.

The United Airlines Quilt A group of four United Airlines flight attendants decided to create a quilt as a special tribute to the flight attendants, pilots and ground crew personnel killed aboard Flight 175 when it was flown into the South Tower. They created a quilt made up of pieces of uniforms like those worn on the flight. The four flight attendants collected uniforms from retired United Airlines employees and co-workers across the country. After completing the quilt, they reached out to families of the co-workers who died aboard the flight, and created special messages to honor each. The quilt hung in Boston’s Logan Airport, the origin of Flight 175, where it can be seen by United Airlines personnel. Eventually, they donated the quilt to the 9/11 Memorial Museum.

The National 9/11 Flag When the World Trade Center Towers collapsed, a 30- foot American flag that was hanging at a nearby construction site was destroyed by falling debris. Its remains were stored in a shed, untouched for about 7 years. In 2008, the New York Says Thank You Foundation, which organizes volunteer projects for communities in need across the nation, brought the flag to Greenburg, Kansas which had been recently destroyed by a tornado. As hundreds of New York Says Thank You volunteers helped to rebuild a pavilion in Greensburg, residents of Greenburg joined together to thank the NY volunteers by reconstructing the tattered flag. To do so, they used flags recovered from the sites affected by the tornado. The flag, now known as the National 9/11 Flag, represents shared stories of tragedy, triumph and the power of the human spirit.

The National September 11 th Memorial Official Dedication Ceremony: Sunday, September 11, 2011 Official Opening to the Public: Monday, September 12, 2011 The National September 11 Memorial is a tribute to the nearly 3,000 people killed in the terror attacks of September 11, The site also commemorates the six people killed in the World Trade Center bombing back in February The twin reflecting pools that you see in the picture sit where the Twin Towers once stood. They are the largest manmade waterfalls in North America as they each measure nearly an acre in size! The names of every person who died in the 2001 and 1993 attacks are inscribed into perimeters of the Memorial pools. It “is a powerful reminder of the largest loss of life resulting from a foreign attack on American soil and the greatest single loss of rescue personnel in American history.”

I hope you enjoyed this tribute. If you are interested in learning more about The National 9/11 Memorial you can visit:

Citations Images and Information: on_P5.pdf