9/11 first responders honored

Associated Press

NEW YORK

The National September 11 Memorial and Museum on Wednesday marked the 10th anniversary of the end of cleanup operations at the site with a tribute to recovery workers and first responders.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg, former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and former Gov. George Pataki attended the evening event at the Sept. 11 memorial plaza at the World Trade Center site.

After the attacks, an army of workers spent months cleaning up the site. The formal end of that operation was May 30, 2002, and was marked with the removal of the last column of steel that had still been standing.

In that ceremony, the steel column was covered in a black shroud and taken away.