Description: This crushed file cabinet was recovered from the debris pile at the World Trade Center.
Context: The World Trade Center complex was home to a wide variety of businesses, including a number of retail stores on the plaza and underground levels. This file cabinet came from a Ben & Jerry’s ice-cream shop that was a popular fixture on the plaza. Terrorist attacks such as those of September 11 often target civilians rather than combatants.
Description: Jan Demczur, a window washer at the World Trade Center, used this brass Ettore Corp. squeegee handle (now missing its brass channel and rubber blade) to escape from an elevator on September 11.
Context: When a hijacked airplane struck the north tower of the World Trade Center, six men, including Polish immigrant window washer Jan Demczur, found themselves trapped in an express elevator at the 50th floor. Thinking quickly, Demczur and the others pried open the elevator doors and used this squeegee handle to cut their way through the drywall of the elevator shaft. They squeezed through the hole in the wall, fleeing from the building just minutes before the tower fell.
Description: This M&M dispenser, soot-covered calendar, and desk copy of the U.S. Army code were recovered from the Pentagon office of Charles A. Reimer, Deputy Division Chief, Strategic Leadership, Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff Operations/Army G-3.
Context: Charles Reimer, a civilian employee for the Department of Defense, survived the terrorist attack on the Pentagon. His office was on the third floor of the D ring (the E ring is the exterior), and was directly above the path of the airplane as it slid through the first and second floors of E, D, and C rings. As flames shot up past the windows and the area filled with smoke, he helped a fellow worker escape from the building. In the Pentagon attack, 125 employees were killed and 140 were injured; on board the airplane, all 53 passengers, six crew members, and five hijackers were killed.
These floor signs hung on the exterior of the elevator door frames in the World Trade Center. The 73rd Floor indicator is rectangular and painted black with the number and Braille equivalent in raised silver. It was recovered from the debris at the Staten Island recovery site at Fresh Kills.
This material from Officer Isaac Hoopii includes his uniform (shirt with insignia, trousers, boots, and name tag), his shield, his dog Vitos collar and shield, a K-9 patch, and a poster of Vito.
This large plaque contains the names of all 184 victims of the Pentagon attack. The seals across the bottom represent the Department of Defense, Joint Chiefs of Staff, Army, Marine Corps, Navy, Air Force, and Coast Guard. A copy of this plaque hangs in Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfields Pentagon office.
Description: This apron is covered with uniform patches from grateful patrons of Nino's restaurant, a relief center for World Trade Center recovery workers.
Context: Many Americans looked for ways to help after the September 11 attacks. One New York City businessman, Antonio Nino Vendome, turned his family restaurant into a relief center. Staffed by volunteers and supported largely by donations, Nino’s served hundreds of thousands of free meals twenty-four hours a day to firefighters, police officers, Red Cross workers, and others at the World Trade Center site. For many, Nino’s became a refuge, a place to find companionship and support as well as a meal. Many of the workers left their organizational patches as tokens of thanks, which Nino attached to kitchen aprons and hung on the wall.