By Ryan Lavis Staten Island Advance
FDNY members salute a piece of steel recovered from the World Trade Center as it’s transported through Staten Island to a dedication ceremony at the National Museum of the Marine Corps in Virginia. (FDNY Twitter photo)
A piece of steel recovered from the wreckage of the World Trade Center was transported Saturday through Staten Island to be displayed during a ceremony at the National Museum of the Marine Corps in Virginia.
The Fire Department of New York branch of the Marine Corps Association is dedicating a monument to 17 New York City firefighters, who were also Marines, during a ceremony Sunday morning at the museum in Triangle, Va., just outside Marine Corps Base Quantico.
Organizers say the monument includes a piece of steel retrieved from the wreckage of the World Trade Center after the terrorist attacks in New York City on September 11, 2001.
The 16-foot piece of steel was split into two pieces and transported Saturday on the back of a flatbed truck. It traveled over the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, onto the Staten Island Expressway and then over the Outerbridge Crossing into New Jersey before arriving Saturday in Virginia, according to FDNY Marine Corps Association president John Newman.
A convoy of firefighters, family members of victims and various motorcycle groups accompanied the steel to Virginia, Newman said.
A photo posted to the FDNY’s Twitter account shows FDNY members standing at an overpass on the Expressway, saluting the steel as it’s being transported south.
Several of the firefighters being honored during Sunday’s ceremony had ties to Staten Island, Newman said.
