9/11 Monument with World Trade Center I-Beam Should Be Ready for 2014 Observance

A piece of an I-beam salvaged from the World Trade Center ruins will be included in a granite monument that will serve as a cornerstone of Farmington’s Sept. 11 memorial ceremony to commemorate the victims of the 2001 terrorist attacks.

The project has been in the works for more than a year, but is expected to be complete when the 9/11 remembrance ceremony takes place at Farmington City Hall on Sept. 11, Observer & Eccentric reports.

The educational monument will feature a timeline and tell the story of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, as well as United Airlines flight 93, which crashed in an open field after being hijacked by al Qaeda terrorists.

“People will be truly able to connect with this,” Farmington resident Brian Golden, who served on the planning committee, told the newspaper. “People will be able to see their own images in the granite. It is designed to make it a moving experience.

Also members of the planning committee who helped move the project forward are Farmington Public Safety Director Bob Schulz, funeral director Bob Rock of Thayer-Rock Funeral Home and City Councilman Steve Schneemann, also an architect with S3 Architects who designed the monument.

Golden told the Observer & Eccentric the community has been solidly behind the memorial project.

“In the past year, we have had a wonderful connection between the community and the committee to fund the monument,”  he said.

About $24,000 has  been raised, most of it from community residents. The project has also received some corporate support. Contributions are still being taken, and may be made by calling Farmington City Hall at (248) 474-5500.

The memorial will be set apart with landscaping features, and a bench will be installed. People will be able to see their images in the shiny granite, increasing the power of the monument to connect people to the tragedy, Golden said.