Monday, September 24, 2007
More stops have been added to the fund-raising tour.
PITTSBURGH (AP) — New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg visited the Flight 93 crash site before stopping in Pittsburgh on Sunday as part of a fund-raising tour for a memorial and museum to commemorate the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
Several hundred people gathered near the city’s baseball stadium, PNC Park, where Bloomberg and other officials spoke and signed one of two 40-foot-long steel beams that will be used in the construction of the World Trade Center memorial in New York.
“With your help, we will build a memorial that will tell the story to future generations so that our children and grandchildren will know the sacrifice that was made and will realize just how important the freedoms that we have in this country are,” he said.
United Airlines Flight 93 was en route from Newark, N.J., to San Francisco on Sept. 11, 2001, when it crashed as passengers apparently tried to rush the cockpit of the hijacked airliner. All 33 passengers, seven crew members and the hijackers died.
Bloomberg said the tour already had produced about $1 million in donations “both large and small.” It features the steel beams and a traveling exhibition of photographs, artifacts and videos that recount the story of the Sept. 11 attacks.
Getting closer to goal
For the past year, Bloomberg has led the campaign, which is nearing its $350 million goal. More than $400 million has also been committed by the government to build the memorial, which will feature two pools that evoke the footprints of the two towers and will list the names of the nearly 3,000 victims.
The tour began in Columbia, S.C., where the steel beams were made, on the eve of the sixth anniversary of the attacks and has stopped in Raleigh, N.C., and Norfolk, Va. It will head west before swinging through the South this winter.
“I think the fact that the outpouring of interest is so great, we will probably extend this tour to visit another 10 cities over and above the original 15 we had planned,” Bloomberg said.
Among the other officials at the ceremony, which took place under sunny skies and was punctuated by bagpipes — were 9/11 survivor and New York Fire Department Lt. Mickey Kross, Pittsburgh Mayor Luke Ravenstahl and Allegheny County Chief Executive Dan Onorato.
People lined up to donate money and sign the beams, which were perched on a trailer and weigh 4 tons each. Many wore Pittsburgh Steelers jerseys and were headed to the football game at nearby Heinz Field.
“I think it’s a good thing to remember what happened on September 11th, and just signing that makes you think you have a part of it,” said Steve Spinda, a 48-year-old electrician from Kersey.
Other planned stops for the tour include Cincinnati; Lansing, Mich.; Aurora, Ill.; Madison, Wis.; and Des Moines, Iowa. Organizers said Sunday they had added stops in St. Louis; Little Rock, Ark.; Memphis, Tenn.; Oklahoma City; Ft. Worth, Texas; Shreveport, Louisiana; Jackson, Miss.; Birmingham, Ala.; Atlanta and Tampa.
At the crash site
Earlier Sunday, Bloomberg toured the Flight 93 memorial site near Shanksville, where he presented officials with an American flag that had flown above ground zero. The flag was then raised at the Flight 93 site, about 65 miles southeast of Pittsburgh. He presented a similar flag in Pittsburgh.
Bloomberg said Shanksville and New York City shared in the losses of that day, and he spoke of the importance of memorializing the events and victims, even if costly.
Christine Fraser, sister of flight victim Colleen Fraser, said seeing Bloomberg and his reaction to the memorial was meaningful.
“I was so pleased to hear that he wanted to come out and see for himself what this place is,” she said.
Construction of a $58 million permanent memorial at the site and national park is scheduled to begin by 2009, but fundraising for that memorial has fallen well short of organizers’ goals. A ribbon-cutting is planned for the 10-year anniversary of the attacks.
The park will encompass 2,200 acres, of which more than 1,350 acres include the crash site, debris field and land to be used by visitors to the national memorial. Another 907 acres would comprise the perimeter around the memorial.