Crime & Safety

West Pierce Fire & Rescue Hopes To Build Reflection Park To Display World Trade Center Steel

Some who attended Duck Daze 2012 this past weekend in University Place got to learn a little bit about the project.

If you attended the open house this past weekend at , you might have caught wind of the department's efforts to permanently display a piece of

Basically, West Pierce hopes to build a reflection park in which visitors can view the 3-foot-long piece of steel that was once part of the fallen Twin Towers in New York.

It will take some fundraising and community support. I caught up with Greg Reimann - one of the five firefighters who traveled to New York to pick up and transport the steel last year. You'll be hearing about the effort directly from him soon.

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In the meantime, I urge you to visit the website that West Pierce has created for the 9/11 Reflection Park project:

West Pierce Fire & Rescue received a piece of steel from the World Trade Center and it is currently on display in the front lobby of Station 31, located at 3631 Drexler Drive in University Place. The vision all along has been to create an appropriate space to properly display and honor this historic and meaningful artifact. A committee was formed with a broad cross-section of West Pierce employees and local architects, designers, artists and contractors to arrive at a design. A final concept has been developed and the cost estimate for this ambitious project is nearly $300,000. The committee has already secured several commitments for significant “in-kind” donations, ranging from architectural and landscape design to concrete construction. The employees of West Pierce will also play a key role, volunteering their time and talents toward the project’s completion.

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Now we must begin to create a fundraising plan to make the 9/11 Reflection Park a reality, something we will all be proud of for decades to come. The committee has created a variety of opportunities for you to become involved, including direct cash donations, “in-kind” donations of materials and services, purchasing engraved pavers as a permanent part of the site and purchasing commemorative coins that commemorate the 9/11 Reflection Park. In the end, tax dollars won’t create the park, the generosity of our West Pierce employees and our citizens will accomplish that. We have a desire to truly honor this historic artifact while creating an appropriate space for reflection; a park that is truly a part of all of us. Raising the funds to create the 9/11 Reflection Park will allow us to see this vision come to life.

The 9/11 Reflection Park project is a part of West Pierce CARES, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization.

(Click here to be directed to the 9/11 Reflection Park's website)


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