A 9/11 Symbol Finds Its Home In Birmingham

It was a day of stark contrasts for a Birmingham woman who was at the center of the country’s worst terrorism attack 10 years ago.

“It was an absolutely beautiful morning,” said , who on September 11, 2001, was working in her office at Goldman Sachs in New York. 

Her building was right next to the World Trade Center and she described to a crowd at the on Sunday — the 10-year anniversary of 9/11 — how the beauty of that morning vanished in a split second.

“We suddenly heard and felt a significant crash,” Epstein Stotland said.

What followed was a blurry scene of chaos: A dark basement. Hundreds crowded around her. In daylight, an urban landscape overcome with smoke and dust. Survivors transformed into “untrained, unsuspecting citizen soldiers.”

“Even thinking about 9/11 tends to take my breath away,” Epstein Stotland told the somber crowd. Like Epstein Stotland, many were on the verge of tears as she described her experiences.

On this milestone anniversary, Epstein Stotland and several government officials helped unveil a physical reminder of that day — a small portion of steel taken directly from the Twin Towers that will be housed in the lobby of the fire department on South Adams Road.

The Epstein family helped bring this memorial to Birmingham through the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. As it was shown to the public for the first time, at least 200 people gathered around it in the firehouse where the ceremony took place. They took pictures with their phones and carefully examined the small, rusted pieced of history.

“This piece of steel is an otherwise ordinary object,” Birmingham Mayor Gordon Rinschler said. “But it represents hope and triumph.”

Epstein Stotland admitted that she at first wasn’t sure that such a physical symbol of 9/11 should come to Birmingham.

“I had mixed emotions,” she said.

She wasn’t alone. Others had previously debated what type of memorial to display and whether the city should even have one, including a Birmingham woman whose husband died in the American Airlines flight that struck the North Tower.

“But now I know that we’re doing the right thing by bringing this memorial to this city and not shying away from the difficult memories it evokes,” Epstein Stotland said.

Government officials who spoke at the short ceremony emphasized the unique American spirit that came through in the aftermath of 9/11.

“We saw evil in the deeds of few, but we saw good in the hearts of millions,” said Congressman Gary Peters, D-MI. “(9/11) united us in a spirit of kindness and dignity. That is what America was founded on, and that’s what America has always been about.”

Those in the crowd all had personal reasons for showing up. Many had no direct connections to the tragedy, but all seemed to feel a sense of personal grief as well as pride in how America has changed and grown in the last decade.

Others acknowledged the raw feelings that linger.

Birmingham resident Mary Ellen Cortright on this anniversary was remembering her father who died a couple of years before 9/11 — but who she described as "fiercely patriotic."

Cortright and her late father were also natives of New York. She said if her father had been alive, he would have driven to New York immediately to help in whatever way he could.

"I can't even imagine the rage he would have felt from 9/11," Cortright said. "I'm sure he was rolling in his grave."