A Beam of Hope

As the new World Trade Center rises over Manhattan, a determined group of New Jersey firefighters are building a stirring tribute from one of the last remaining pieces of 9/11 wreckage.

Photos by Sophie Butcher

On a Wednesday morning in April, a blanket of gray clouds hangs low over JFK Airport’s Hangar 17. There’s a spring chill in the air and the jets overhead provide a backdrop of white noise to an otherwise eerily quiet atmosphere. Chugging engines break the silence as Jim Smith, a volunteer firefighter from Absecon, N.J., pulls up in a little red fire truck, followed by a larger, empty-bedded construction truck.

Smith has secured one of the remnants of the World Trade Center: a rusted beam from high up in one of the towers, which has been stored in Hangar 17. Smith is eager to memorialize the steel in his hometown of Absecon, a small shore town 116 miles south of New York City. The unremarkable sight a few small American flags flapping on his firehouse grounds on September 11, 2012, made Smith realize that something was missing. And then it struck him: Absecon needed a piece of the tower itself. “221 days later, I made it happen,” he marveled on the phone, the day…