Clarkson Invites the Community to Reflect at World Trade Center Memorial Sculpture on 9/11

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September 4, 2024

On Wednesday, September 11, the Clarkson University campus community and members of the local community are invited to gather throughout the day at Clarkson's World Trade Center Memorial Sculpture as a place to reflect upon the tragic events of 9/11.

The memorial is open to the public, and is located next to the Townhouse Apartments on Clarkson's Collins Hill Campus.

On September 11, 2001, almost 3,000 people perished in the terrorist attacks on American soil, including four Clarkson University alumni.

The steel in Clarkson's World Trade Center Memorial is from the 55th floor of the World Trade Center's south tower.

Clarkson alumnus Michael Bielawa '85 was one of a group who led the 9/11 clean-up at the World Trade Center. After his first-hand experience with the disaster, Bielawa requested that the New York City Office of Emergency Management donate steel from the World Trade Center to Clarkson to be used for a memorial. Several years of planning and fund-raising led to the installation of a memorial at Clarkson in 2005.

This site was dedicated as a memorial to the four alumni's lives lost in the World Trade Center attacks. Each of the alumni's names, Peter A. Klein '87, Paul R. Hughes '85, Richard J. O'Connor '75, and R. Mark Rasweiler '70, is engraved above a light installed in the foundation of the structure, and at night the lights shine up on the structural beams.

Clarkson's World Trade Center Memorial Sculpture is marked as letter Q on the University's interactive map, which can be found by clicking here.