BERKS COUNTY, Pa. – The whereabouts of a sign from the World Trade Center that survived the September 11th attacks are no longer a mystery.<\/p>\n
25 years later, the sign is in a secure location in Berks County. The question now is: how can it be put on display?<\/p>\n
“I did ask how much it weighed. They said 600 pounds. The sign might weigh six hundred pounds, but the base is probably twice that weight,\u201d said Pa. Rep. Mark Gillen.<\/p>\n
It’s about the length of a car.<\/p>\n
“It’s 2016. We’ve been working on this project, trying to secure steel for the better part of a year. There was someone that this was intended to go to, but for whatever reason, they didn’t pick it up,\u201d said Gillen.<\/p>\n
Made of aluminum alloy, steel, and concrete. With a yellow Number 5 pressed in against a fading maroon background. In bold, white letters, the words World. Trade. Center.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey want to close Hangar 17, the old Pan Am hangar at JFK Airport. They want to get all this stuff out; there are 2,500 articles, just a few are left — including this,\u201d said Gillen.<\/p>\n
“This is a significant oddity that survived the Attack of 9\/11 and further turned out to be an urban legend. Nobody knew where the sign was,\u201d he remarked.<\/p>\n
It’s now in Berks County, and it’s a lot of things, depending on who you ask. An artifact. Evidence from a crime scene. A piece of dark history that still has an energy emanating from it.<\/p>\n
“These things, these items, these artifacts – they cultivate, they stir memories, they remind us of the event,\u201d said Gillen.<\/p>\n
Especially if you lived through the agonizing aftermath.<\/p>\n
“It’s probably a unique sensation I feel since I was at ground zero that night. 9\/11 and 9\/12, working the pile,\u201d he shared.<\/p>\n
From the pile, to a place that’s still uncertain.<\/p>\n
“The County of Berks initially expressed interest in it, and then we have another possible tunnels to towers,\u201d said Gillen.<\/p>\n
But wherever its final resting place will be, it will serve an everlasting purpose.<\/p>\n
“Things have changed remarkably now in terms of artifacts from that period of time. I think the same will be true of 9\/11. I think the interest is going to grow,\u201d said Gillen.<\/p>\n
“I think this is a great educational tool,\u201d said Gillen.<\/p>\n
“Just think of the tens of millions of people that were born after 9\/11; I don’t want this to be forgotten,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BERKS COUNTY, Pa. – The whereabouts of a sign from the World Trade Center that survived the September…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":281795,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[1304,117763,349,128,130,129,5378,58222],"class_list":["post-281794","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-reading","tag-1304","tag-911-attacks","tag-berks-county","tag-reading-city","tag-reading-city-headlines","tag-reading-city-news","tag-sign","tag-world-trade-center"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281794","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=281794"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281794\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/281795"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=281794"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=281794"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=281794"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}