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The Last Column

The Story Of The Last Column

         As they removed the debris from the World Trade Center collapse, there remained one column standing in the middle of everything.

         After more than seven years in a hanger at Kennedy Airport, the mighty steel beam - emblazoned with engine company and police precinct insignias - was returned to Ground Zero.

         The 58-ton, 36-foot-tall beam is so gargantuan in size that its permanent new home, the National Sept. 11 Memorial and Museum was literally erected around it.

         "What makes the Last Column so powerful and authentic is that it was the most makeshift of all the memories as people spontaneously left firehouse patches, police logos, and union stickers to honor the victims." Museum President Joe Daniels

         Visitors to the Subterranean museum can see the shorthand of mourners, who marked their losses in industrial spray paint. "PAPD 37" at the very top, refers to the number of Port Authority cops massacred.

         "NYPD 23" and "FDNY 343" recalls the Finest and Bravest who gave their lives.

         Officially identified as Column 1001-B, the steel beam, one of 47 that held up the South Tower, was quickly plastered with Mass cards, rosary beads, flags, photos of missing innocents, letters from children to parents who would never be coming home.

         After an eight month effort to cart away 1.8 million tons of rubble, the Last Column was carried off the site to the skirl of bagpipes playing "Amazing Grace."

         Preservationists lovingly restored it, as if it were a Rembrandt, in JFK's Hangar 17.

         Swaddled in plastic and covered in a giant climate-controlled box, it was quietly returned to the site at sunrise on a Monday, with a police and fire escort.

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