NEW YORK (AP) — An American flag raised at ground zero on Sept. 11 in a defining moment of patriotic resolve took its place at the site Thursday after disappearing for over a decade.
The 3-foot-by-5-foot flag took a symbolic and curious journey from a yacht moored in lower Manhattan to the smoking wreckage of the World Trade Center, then to a firehouse about 2,400 miles away in Everett, Washington – and now to a glass case at the National Sept. 11 Museum. A TV show, a mysterious man and two years of detective work helped re-establish its whereabouts.
“In a museum that’s filled with such deeply powerful artifacts, this newest of artifacts is certainly one of the most emotionally and historically powerful,” museum President Joe Daniels said as the display was unveiled Thursday, three days before the 15th anniversary of the terror attacks.
The flag’s absence, he said, “just felt like a hole in the history of this site.”
The flag is the centerpiece of one of the most resonant images of American fortitude on 9/11. After plucking the flag from a nearby boat, three firefighters hoisted it amid the ashen destruction as photographer Thomas E. Franklin of The Record of Hackensack, New Jersey, captured the scene. The Pulitzer Prize-winning picture inspired a postage stamp, sculpture and other tributes. – READ MORE
