Steel Beam for Freedom Tower Gets Signed

Yesterday, people headed to to Battery Park City to sign one of the steel beams bound for Freedom Tower. Dina LaFond, whose daughter died on September 11, told NY1, "This is going to be part of the structure that's supporting the building. So those names are going to be forever inscribed in the way the building's actually holding up. It's not just the physics and steel that's holding the building up but people's ideas and emotions and the spiritual idea of creating a tower that will speak to the world about this site." Daniel Liebebskind, Ground Zero's master planner who stopped by to sign a beam, told the NY Times, "This beam is not only supporting a physical building, it’s supporting the spirit of America."

Governor Pataki was also present to sign a beam and, perhaps, to make a last Freedom Tower-related visit before he leaves the office. Pataki's message: "God bless our heroes of 9/11. God bless America. We will never forget."

The NY Post's Steve Dunleavy visited the beam and writes, "This steel column will help anchor the Freedom Tower in the rebuilt World Trade Center. It says that for all of politicians' idiocy, Albany just might have got it right for once." He also hopes that Governor-elect Spitzer will allow the project to go forward (it seems likely that Spitzer and newly appointed Port Authority head Anthony Shorris probably will - unless there's even bigger financial issue, we can't imagine Spitzer wanting to drag things out more).

Photograph from reader ef; you can send us your photographs by emailing us at photos(at)gothamist(dot)com or tag your Flickr pictures with "gothamist".