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New York Dedicates 9/11 Memorial Museum

Aired May 15, 2014 - 10:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

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FLORENCE JONES, 9/11 SURVIVOR: My name is Florence Jones. I went to work on September 11th. I did not plan on walking down 77 flights of stairs. I wasn't dressed for it. Nor did I expect my boss to have to carry my shoes.

I was one of the last of the 25 people to come out of the South Tower. My number is 18. I had taken my shoes off on the 60th floor, and I walked in my stockings the rest of the way. After that, I still walked in my stocking feet 50 more blocks to get to a friend's office, barely in one piece.

When I heard that the museum was looking for artifacts, I thought about my shoes. I had put them in a plastic container. And when I took them out, they still had had the smell on them from that awful day. And I knew I would never wear them again.

So I decided to donate them here. I wanted my nieces and my nephew and every person that asked what happened to see them and maybe understand a little bit better what it felt like to be us on that day.

MAYOR BILL DE BLASIO, NEW YORK: A simple pair of shoes, what could they possibly tell us about 9/11, about the choices and close calls, about the quarter-mile climb down a staircase filled with falling ceilings, crowded with colleagues and confusion, about making it out or not?

Ordinary, everyday objects that we find here in the museum -- a wallet, a ring, an I.D. card, a telephone are unlikely but powerful keepsakes which help us understand the events of that day in human terms. Each piece carries with it another story, one that might have been our own, for don't we all own a pair of shoes we wear to work that could have been the ones we wore that day.

For some, the last 38 steps they walked to freedom and to life were down a narrow outdoor staircase that led to the street. These stairs were also the last above-ground remnant found at the World Trade Center site. They became both a symbol of that terrible day and the months of painstaking recovery.

Workers removed the 56-ton staircase from its concrete base as carefully as one would a sacred object from an archaeological site so that it could be placed in its new home inside the museum. Today when you walk down the museum's last set of stairs that lead to bedrock, whether you walk slowly down the wide, elegant staircase or stand comfortably on the moving escalator, you will travel right beside the VZ Street (ph) staircase. And as you do, imagine for a moment that these hard, concrete stairs were once, for hundreds of people, the last and long-sought path to survival.

KAYLA BERGERON, FORMER CHIEF OF PUBLIC & GOVERNMENT, AFFAIRS, PORT AUTHORITY: My name is Kayla Bergeron. I worked in the North Tower for four years. That day, everyone on our floor, people who knew each other and who didn't started walking down 68 flights of stairs together. It was orderly and calm. And for every step we took down, the firefighters and police were climbing up.

When we got to the sixth floor, it felt the whole world -- it felt as if the whole world started to shake. It turned out that the South Tower had collapsed. Suddenly there was confusion. We were climbing over wires and desks. Port Authority policemen helped us find our way through.

But my friend Patty and I got separated from everyone. And we were long thinking there's no way out. Then we heard a bullhorn said that if we could hear the sound, follow the light. We went this way and that way. And after what seemed like forever, we got to the outdoor VZ staircase.

Now, I had walked those stairs 100 times to go to the train, stop at the post office, never giving them a second thought. But now they were all that separated us from the devastation behind us and life in front of us. Today when I think about those stairs, what they represent to me is resiliency of the people there that day trying to help each other and later the resiliency of our country. Those 38 steps mean everything.

RUDOLPH GIULIANI, FORMER NEW YORK MAYOR: We will never understand why one person escaped and another didn't. How random it all seems and how powerless it makes us all feel. But what this museum does is allow us to see is that we absolutely can affect each other's lives by what we do at a time of crisis. How we are strengthened by what was done that day.

September 11th brought out the largest emergency response in New York City history. 1,000 firefighters, 2,000 police officers, and 100 city and volunteer ambulances rushed into action. When both towers fell, logic says no one could have survived and lived to tell the tale. The South Tower fell, and no one survived.

In the meantime, the men from the New York City Fire Department and Port Authority police were still inside the North Tower attempting to rescue the remaining civilians. But when they reached the third floor, 107 floors of the North Tower fell on top of them.

Lieutenant Mickey Kross remembered that he heard a huge roar, and then everything went dark and totally silent. Buried in debris, he tried to protect himself by making himself so small that he might be able to climb into his helmet. When he heard faint voices calling out, he realized he wasn't alone. He sent mayday signals, hoping someone might hear them. Hours passed.

Outside there was nothing but piles of fiery wreckage. Not only could rescuers not locate the North Tower, they didn't even know where to begin. And yet they kept digging and digging and digging.

It's my honor to introduce you to Mickey Kross and 11 members of the New York City Fire Department and Port Authority Police Department. All of them had been trapped together. God bless them and God bless America.

LT. MICKEY KROSS, FDNY, RESPONDED TO WTC ON 9/11: Thank you.

We were trapped way down inside a dark hole. And after a while, we saw the small beam of light about 30 feet above us. It was sunlight. It had broken through the smoke. And even though it only lasted for a little while, it was enough to let us know it was an opening. It turned out the rescue workers could see it, too. They finally came towards us, they couldn't believe we had survived and walked out on our own. They continued to look for other survivors. There had been 14 of us trapped in the stairwell, trying to stay alive and searching for a way out. Miraculously, we survived.

Once we got out, we saw complete devastation. The whole Trade Center was gone. What you could see were huge pieces of twisted steel and fires everywhere and workers, never giving up on finding people. After our rescue, many of us joined the rescue and recovery teams at Ground Zero to do for others what had been done for us. We had to.

We had come together at Ground Zero to help each other out. There was a real sense of caring for one another. This is something we should never forget and never stop doing. Thank you.

MANNY RODRIGUEZ: I am Manny Rodriguez and I am a member of Teamsters Local 282. I worked at Ground Zero in heavy construction for nine months.

PIA HOFFMAN: My name is Pia Hoffman. I'm a crane operator, and I worked at Ground Zero for eight months.

TONY FAVARA: My name is Tony Favara. I'm a detective with the New York City Police Department Emergency Service Unit. I worked at Ground Zero for nine months.

LT. STEPHEN BUTLER: My name is Steve Butler. I'm a Lieutenant with the Port Authority Police Emergency Service Unit. I worked down at Ground Zero for nine months, performing rescue and recovery.

After learning losing my brother, Tommy, a firefighter with Squad Company Number 1, I was the first person to put his picture on this piece of steel which we called the last column. After that, many others followed with pictures and signatures.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The last column was part of the last area that was searched.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It really tells the three stories of the building, the destruction and this cleanup effort.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: As the site was cleared and the beam came to stand alone, people that were working at the site or family members began affixing the photos.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Everybody was putting little sayings and notes on the column. We had a flag flying atop of it, and it was the icon on the site -- the sheer size of it, the number of signatures, farewells not only to lost loved ones but also to this new family that developed on Ground Zero.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We all became this family that worked together to try to make other families feel better. We were never going to fill in a hole, but if we made it a little smaller, that was all we could do.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Whether they signed the column or not, that column meant something to us. We completed the job, and we did a job well done.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think that last beam symbolizes the best of what humanity can do.

GEORGE PATAKI, FORMER GOVERNOR, NEW YORK: Of all the heartbreaking things we had to learn how to do after September 11th, the most necessary was -- and the most difficult -- was finding a way to honor every single person who was on those four planes, in the Pentagon or the World Trade Center Towers and those who died trying to save them, to give their families and us a place to come and remember them.

Now near where we are now, there is such a place filled with the photos, keepsakes and stories of those we lost. These are our book of memory.

In the area called Memorial Hall, there stands a three-story high wall connecting the footprints of the once mighty north and South Towers. On it are written ten simple words by the great poet Virgil that express what this museum is all about. "No day shall erase you from the memory of time."

From there, you walk through to the wall of faces lined from floor to ceiling with smiling fathers, daughters, brothers, nieces, family and loved ones. In the same way we have photos in our own homes, these pictures are alive with the memories of the birthdays and weddings, barbecues and baseball games of those we lost. What you will be looking at are the pages of the chapter in our history we call September 11th.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Where? Oh.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's a good picture.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It is. You'd be so proud of your daughter. Just amazing just like you.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Seeing all these faces of different people. There he is.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Wow.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There you are. This is Hanna. This is you. This was a couple of weeks before 9/11 actually happened. This is our last family picture.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I love this photo.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes. That's him. That's you. That's your smile. That's you. You act just like him -- right. Mannerisms and everything is just like your father. You look like him.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You act like him.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You act like him and sound like him.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So many -- right? There she is. I love that picture. You were three and you were two. Remember? Through the years, I know all these names now, you know.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Marian Lecorey Simone. Although she's barely taking care of herself or, you know wanted to look as pretty as possible, she was never above putting on a silly face.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Dancing on a bar because all her friends were. All her friends were 30. And she was 50. She hung out with them. Remember she told us she had gone to the biker bar the night before. Then it was embarrassing, but now we're doing the same stuff.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And when he heard the call on the radio, he told his partners, we've got to go.

And he just ran up the stairs, and he just hailed a cab. He went straight to those buildings. And he did what he had to do. He had to go help people.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He would do things spontaneous. He would just get up there -- come on get up, we're going there. Let's do something different today. He just felt that life was too short to plan things. And I think I learned that on that day.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Robert Chin. Right there. That's Uncle Robert.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That's Robert.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mama adopted you and named you --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Roberta Hope Chin because I was the new hope for the family.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That's right.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And I am his niece and namesake. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, you are Uncle Robert's niece and namesake.

DONALD DIFRANCESCO, FORMER NEW JERSEY GOVERNOR: This is a place where thousands of stories converge, where we can touch the face of history, our history. And yet while we come here to remember the past, it is the future, too, that stands with us in this hall.

To truly honor that day, we must promise both to keep our memories of it alive and to search for ways to build something positive in the names of those we lost. They were the pride of their families and the pride of their countries. Their stories, their spirit and their examples can live on as our guides and our beacons by making their names and their lives stand for something meaningful in our world. What greater legacy can there be for the lives cut short than to live in the good works created in their names?

ADA ROSARIO DOLCH, SISTER OF 9/11 VICTIM: My name is Ada Rosario Dolch. And my sister Wendy worked in Tower 1 of the World Trade Center. I worked two blocks away as the principal of a high school that encouraged leadership and public service. That morning it was my job to protect our 600-plus students, but I couldn't protect my sister.

My whole life has been about educating children. After Wendy died, I was with friends and said, imagine if we went to Afghanistan and we built a school there. What a kick in the head to Osama bin Laden. Kathy Aullerton and countless others joined forces, and four years after 9/11, a school was opened in my sister's memory in the province of Herat, Afghanistan.

About 200 boys and girls came to study, and since then many, many more, all of them entrusted with education and their country's future. There can be beauty out of the ashes. It's hard work, but it can be done.

JIM LAYCHAK, BROTHER OF 9/11 VICTIM: My name is Jim Laychak. My younger brother, Dave, was at his desk in the Pentagon on that September 11th. He was a civilian working for the Department of the army. After the attack, many wondered how will we remember those we lost?

As family members, we needed to find a way to honor and remember them and in the process maybe find a way to heal ourselves. Working together with friends, colleagues, families, supporters from around the world, we opened the Pentagon Memorial on September 11th, 2008. It is a place we remember 184 men, women and children, a place to provide solace and healing surrounded by the beauty of life.

My brother, Dave, and I had been young together, and we expected to grow old together, play a lot of golf and argue about who had the better-looking grandchildren. Now there will be children born after 9/11 who only read about that day in books. Some of them might even think the people it happened to weren't real. But we are here to help them know that they were.

My hope now is to create an educational center at the Pentagon Memorial where schoolchildren can come and spend some time getting to know their country's story and the very real people who lived it.

MICHAEL BLOOMBERG, FORMER MAYOR, NEW YORK: We'd like to end our dedication ceremony on a note of hope that all the visitors to this museum, those who lived through the tragedy and those young enough to be learning about it for the first time will come away with a sense not of the worst of humanity but of the best.

There are hard lessons -- hard history lessons to be learned here, but also shafts of light that can illuminate our days ahead. To all those who have worked so tirelessly to bring this museum and its ideals to life -- we owe you our deepest gratitude and appreciation; and special thanks to Joe Daniels, president and Alice Greenwald, director of the 9/11 Memorial Museum.

This museum is a testament to the resilience, the courage and the compassion of the human spirit that lies within each and every human being. So I think it's only fitting then, that we bring our ceremony to a close with one of Aaron Copeland's most enduring and life- affirming pieces, "Fanfare for the Common Man".

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