Derby unveiled its monument Sunday to the lives lost during the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks of 2001.
The centerpiece of the stately monument on the Derby Green features a bent steel floor beam from one of the World Trade Center towers.
The steel stands there representing the American spirit, according to Gary Parker, a past Derby Fire Department chief.
“We know this beam went through hell, just like everybody in those towers,” Parker said. “It may be bent, but it did not break — much like the character of our country.”
The steel beam was given to the Derby Fire Department by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.
Sunday’s dedication ceremony was videotaped by Derby resident Jack Walsh and posted on the Electronic Valley, along with a photo gallery.
The quotes in this story were taken from that video.
This story continues after the photo gallery:
Scheduled speakers included past Derby Fire Commissioner Kelly Curtis, Derby Mayor Anita Dugatto and state Sen. Joseph Crisco.
As the first-person memories dull, the monument gives Derby and the lower Valley a place for future generations to gather and remember what happened to the U.S. on Sept. 11, said past Derby Fire Department Chief William Nicoletti.
The speakers Sunday did not sugar coat the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 in cliches or psychobabble.
“A lot of those firefighters and police officers knew that they were climbing those stairs and walking into their deaths, but they still walked up those stairs and saved lives that day,” said Derby Fire Department Chief Thomas Lenart, Jr.
Joseph Higgins Jr., a member of the Branford Board of Selectmen and a retired New York City firefighter, was in the city when it happened.
Higgins, at the time FDNY’s deputy director of communications, rode an elevator across the river in Brooklyn with nine firefighters responding to the attack on lower Manhattan.
Of the people in that elevator, Higgins was the only person alive to see Sept. 12, 2001.
“We maintained our credibility to the bitter end. We took on a job that nobody could ever fathom,” Higgins said. “War time.”
The speakers also said the Derby monument is in memory of the people who died at the Pentagon on Sept. 11 and aboard United Airlines Flight 93 in Shankesville, Pa. In addition, the monument is a place to remember the Americans who have died fighting the ensuing war on terror.
“We are here to make sure that despite time, no one will ever forget what took place that tragic day,” said retired New Haven Fire Department Chief Michael Grant.
Here is a report filed Sunday by WTNH:
