Press

The New York State Museum has announced several additional stops on a national tour of its new traveling exhibition -- Recovery: The World Trade Center Recovery Operation at Fresh Kills -- the only exhibition of its kind.

The exhibition, documenting the historic recovery effort to locate human remains and personal objects from the collapse of the World Trade Center (WTC), debuted in August at the Western Reserve Historical Society in Cleveland, Ohio where it will be open through October 26th. It will then be at the New York Historical Society (11/25/03-3/21/04); Layland Museum in Cleburne, Texas (4/29-7/25/04) and Buffalo and Erie County Historical Society (9/3-12/5/04).

The 65 photographs and 50 objects in the exhibition come from the New York State Museum's extensive collection of objects, art, oral histories and memorial material obtained from Ground Zero and the Fresh Kills Landfill. Many of the items in the larger collection were used in the museum's permanent exhibition in Albany, N.Y., the nation's largest and most comprehensive permanent exhibition about the World Trade Center history and September 11th attacks. The World Trade Center: Rescue, Recovery and Response has attracted record crowds since it opened to the public in September 2002.

Collectively, the items in the traveling exhibition help to tell the unheralded story of what happened when the recovery effort moved beyond Ground Zero to Fresh Kills landfill, the "city on the hill" on Staten Island where recovery workers toiled for long, tedious hours at a disheartening task.

The landfill's name, which means "fresh stream," came from early Dutch settlers and described an area made up of meadows, marshlands, wetlands and streams. The landfill operated for 50 years, encompassing 3,000 acres on the western shore of Staten Island. The last landfill in New York City, it was slated to close and become a wildlife refuge and park. But, instead, the landfill was declared a crime scene on the morning of September 12, 2001 and trucks began arriving from Ground Zero with the steel and crushed debris that were once the World Trade Center. The landfill was the ideal location for the recovery operation because it was reachable by land and water, it could be secured, and resources of the New York City Department of Sanitation were readily available.

Firefighters, ironworkers, engineers, contractors, police officers, and volunteers eventually removed 1.8 million tons of debris from Ground Zero to the landfill. The recovery operation had three objectives: to find human remains, personal effects, and any evidence of the terrorist attack. The recovery operation quickly evolved from simple hand sorting into an elaborate technical sifting and sorting process.
From an encampment without phones, running water or electricity, Fresh Kills was transformed into a small city with heated and air-conditioned trailers and water facilities. The Hilltop Café, operated by the Salvation Army and the American Red Cross, served food and drink to over 1,500 people a day. Structures were built around sorting tents to keep the staff comfortable and focused on their tasks. A supply tent was erected to provide everything from Tyvek suits to eye drops and sun block.

The New York State Museum staff became well acquainted with the army of workers from the New York Police
Department (NYPD), FBI, 25 state and federal agencies and 14 private contractors, whose daunting, exacting task
was the sorting and examination of the World Trade Center material. Over time, an unprecedented partnership
developed between museum staff and law enforcement personnel who became curators-at-large for the museum, setting aside items that were not evidence or personal effects that they thought would help document this event for historic purposes. While collecting, Museum staff documented operations, taking photos of the stark landscape of Fresh Kills, the sorting and sifting operations, hundreds of debris piles and vehicles, and the people involved in the recovery process.

The resulting exhibition includes a recovered American flag, several World Trade Center souvenirs, building keys, signs, guns and sections of the building facade, marble floor and a fragment of one of the planes. Among the rescue-related objects are a NYPD radio holster, New York Fire Department (NYFD) boot, a firefighter's Scott pack (oxygen tank) and a fragment of a destroyed fire truck. A touch screen interactive contains FBI film of the operations and an inventory of objects in the museum's collections.

"The New York State Museum faced a daunting task in the Fall of 2001" said Museum Director Clifford Siegfried. "As an institution charged with documenting New York State history, the museum was challenged to select and preserve items from the World Trade Center attack that would speak to our own and future generations and help document an event that was unprecedented in our nation's history. We hope this exhibition will help Americans throughout the country to better appreciate the professionalism and dedication of thousands of public servants who contributed to a historic recovery operation."

"This exhibition shines a light on the many unsung heroes who worked tirelessly 'on the hill' and offers a glimpse of this hidden history of September 11," said Mark Schaming, the Museum's director of exhibitions who headed the collaborative project. "Over many months, State Museum staff became acquainted with the FBI and NYPD and was granted unique access to this historic material. Without their dedication, these objects, touched by history, would be lost forever."

The exhibition is offered for travel from 2003-2006. Requests for information may be made through the New York State Museum's exhibitions office, 518-474-0080 or email nkelley@mail.nysed.gov.

The exhibition is made possible by New York Governor George Pataki, The New York State Senate, The New York State Assembly and the New York State Museum, a program of the State Education Department.

Founded in 1836, the New York State Museum has the longest continuously operating state natural history research and collection survey in the United States. The museum is located on Madison Avenue in Albany. Further information is available by calling 474-5877 or visiting the museum website at www.nysm.nysed.gov.