A piece of 9/11 history lives at UNC Charlotte, 25 years later
UNC Charlotte is home to a piece of 9/11 history, offering the campus community a place to honor the nearly 3,000 lives lost 25 years ago at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and aboard United Airlines Flight 93.
A steel section from Tower One of the World Trade Center, installed outside Duke Centennial Hall, serves as a permanent site for reflection and remembrance. Dedicated on Sept. 11, 2006, the column was donated to the William States Lee College of Engineering and the Department of Civil Engineering by D.H. Griffin Wrecking Company.
Today, Thursday, Sept. 10, UNC Charlotte’s Fire and Safety Technologist organization is volunteering in the placement of 2,977 flags — arranged in the shape of the Twin Towers — at Romare Bearden Park in uptown Charlotte to commemorate the 25th anniversary of 9/11. Members will also participate in the park’s remembrance ceremony at 8 a.m. Friday, Sept. 11.
During the ceremony, Halleluya Ayele, a senior in the Fire and Safety Program in the Albert School of Construction, will be recognized as a recipient of the Steven Coakley Memorial Scholarship, established in memory of Steven Coakley, a New York firefighter with Engine 217 in Brooklyn who heroically laid down his life on Sept. 11, 2001, while helping others escape the World Trade Center.