NEW YORK — The National September 11 Memorial and Museum on Wednesday marked the 10th anniversary of the end of cleanup operations at the site with a tribute to recovery workers and first responders.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg, former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and former Gov. George Pataki attended the evening event at the Sept. 11 memorial plaza at the World Trade Center site.
“It looks peaceful — the extreme opposite of what I saw when I first came down,” said Jaye Markwell, a Connecticut volunteer with the Salvation Army who helped deliver food during the effort.
After the attacks, an army of workers spent months cleaning up the site. They removed about 1.8 million tons of steel and concrete. The formal end of that operation was May 30, 2002, and was marked with the removal of the last column of steel that had still been standing.
One World Trade Center, replacing the towers, is under construction. The 9/11 memorial opened in September. No completion date has been set for the museum.
