Photograph from the Survivors' Stairway
This morning, the "Survivors' Staircase," which people escaping the World Trade Center used on September 11 and is the last remaining part of the WTC, was moved this morning. The staircase will be in storage just 200 feet from its location at Vesey and Church until it can be moved to the for a few months until it can be placed into the National September 11 Memorial & Museum.
The staircase, which connected the WTC's outdoor plaza with the street, was named one of America's Most Endangered Places by the National Trust for Historical Preservation in 2006, when it seemed likely they would be destroyed in redevelopment plans. But last year, the Spitzer administration suggested moving the stairs to the museum.
The AP reports the stairs, which were "whittled down to 65 tons" in order to be moved (there's also "an elaborate steel bracing system that took three months to build"), were placed onto a flatbed truck by a crane. The stairs will also be covered in plywood and Styrofoam. It's expected the stairs will be moved to the site of the museum in the summer.
One person who used the stairs on September 11, Tim Canavan, said he tunneled out of debris before getting to the stairs, "Time seemed to move very fast. It took me about 20 minutes to tunnel out, just digging. I had no fingernails left when I got to the top." He also said, "Without that staircase, I don't see myself getting out of that plaza before the north tower comes down and kills me."
