9/11 Artifacts Donated to New Homes

A pair of 9/11 artifacts have been moved to a permanent home after being stored for more than a decade at an aircraft hangar in Queens, NY.

The artifacts, a PATH train car and a piece of the antenna from the North Tower, were kept at Hangar 17 at John F. Kennedy International Airport following the 2001 terror strikes. The artifacts were moved last week to a museum and community college in upstate New York.

The train car, No. 143, was donated to the Trolley Museum of New York in Kingston, becoming the museum’s first artifact with a 9/11 connection. The Fulton-Montgomery Community College in Johnstown received a 32-foot section of the 360-foot antenna. The college plans to install the antenna on its campus near a Vietnam War memorial and the student union, according to The New York Times.

Peter L. Rinaldi, a retired Port Authority engineer said in The Times article that he first discovered the PATH rail cars in late September of 2001 "when several of us went underground to inspect the condition of the remains of the W.T.C. PATH station beneath the rubble and burning debris."

"There were six empty PATH cars still in the station at that time, three of which were badly damaged and three that were not," he said, adding it was that moment when he thought that one of the cars could possibly be saved as an artifact. 

There are 228 objects, which are mainly small, that remain at the hangar, said Steve Coleman, a spokesman for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. The Port has long been preserving World Trade Center remnants, including artifacts that are now on display in the 9/11 Memorial Museum like the Last Column and the so-called steel tridents.

By Christine Murphy, 9/11 Memorial Administration/Researcher