The two pieces of mangled steel arrived on a flatbed truck, under a Fire Department escort, on Thursday afternoon, Feb 10, 2011. They are 18 feet long and weigh 1,400 pounds each. They were from the North Tower. They came to Enfield through a New York Port Authority program that gave Ground Zero artifacts to any public safety or municipal agency that planned to include them in a Sept. 11 display. Over 1,400 pieces of the Twin Towers now live on as a public reminder of that terrible day. The memorial at the Weymouth Road Fire Station has the beams set in a Memorial Garden. The garden is framed by an arced low stone wall that is evenly and solidly built around the sides, but is in a planned state of distress and collapse at the front. I saw similar symbolism at a Veterans Memorial in West Hartford, where the uniformity of a wall, representing America’s time-line, was violently broken during times of war. You’ll also see two granite pillars representing the twin towers, a grouping of stones for United 93, a large Fire Department crest and a plaque dedicated to the firemen lost on September 11, 2001.
