Note: I placed this cache several months ago but am just now getting around to publishing it. Embarrassingly at the time I was very busy setting many caches in and around my hometown of Brenham in preparation for the October 2018 TXGA Roundup to be held there. Since this was along my route to work and back and not near Brenham it slipped my mind. A few days ago I was heading down Hwy. 290 on my way home and it popped into my head. And the cache name "Never Forget".......DOH!
The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey has given away more than 2,600 pieces of steel and other artifacts left behind when terrorists flew two airplanes into the twin towers of the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001.
For 15 years, piles of twisted steel, damaged vehicles and subway cars and other objects were stored inside a hangar at John F. Kennedy Airport. The program ended in August 2016.
Most of the artifacts went to community groups, museums, fire stations, town halls and military bases from Manhattan to Afghanistan. The rest is housed at the 9/11 Memorial and Museum at the World Trade Center site and in state museums in New York and New Jersey.
The Port Authority, in 2006, started a formal program to disperse the artifacts. Because it comes from a crime scene, the release of each piece had to be approved by a federal judge.
The key criteria was that the steel had to be open to the public, but the Port Authority did not set requirements for the design of memorials. The steel can be left outside in the weather.
“It’s not meant to be pretty,” one former Port Authority official said. “It’s meant to be real.”
The steel beams you will see at this location came here as part of that program.