9/11 Artifacts Being Given Away

NEW YORK - The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey is giving away artifacts recovered after the Sept. 11 terror attacks.

The Port Authority, who stored everything from crushed police and subway cars to store mannequins from the World Trade Center in a hangar at John F. Kennedy International Airport, will be handing out nearly 200 mangled artifacts.

Thousands of items have already been distributed over the years, and the Port Authority is giving away the rest to organizations -- on the condition that they're accessible to the public.

Erik Garces, an employee of the Trolley Museum of New York, likens seeing the artifacts to “Opening a tomb.” “It's a way for people who aren't old enough to remember Sept. 11, as it recedes into the past, to keep their hands on something that was actually there. And this way we can never forget the tragedy that was all those people that died that day,” he added.

Former construction worker Louis Pabon wrote a letter to the Port Authority requesting an artifact saying, “It's going to be set up as an axis mundi for the future for students to come and study and actually see a piece of the World Trade Center.”

The last remaining relics of the Sept. 11 attacks will be given away by March 2016, when the hanger is scheduled to be demolished.