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Touring Sept. 11 Memorial Coming To Legends Field

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By KAREN HAYMON LONG, The Tampa Tribune

Published: December 10, 2007

TAMPA - Joe Daniels' voice still catches when he recalls watching people jump from the World Trade Center's north tower on Sept. 11, 2001. After another plane hit the second tower, he ran frantically with others to get out of the area.

Since that day, he left his job as a consultant at McKinsey & Co. and now serves as president of the National September 11 Memorial & Museum, under construction at ground zero in New York.

He and others will bring a touring exhibit of the project to Legends Field on Friday and Saturday. It's the 25th and final stop on a tour that will have visited one city in each of 25 states.

Open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. both days, the exhibit includes photos from Sept. 11, firefighters' helmets and uniforms, and other artifacts recovered from the site where the two 110-story towers collapsed. Videos of survivors, family members and first responders sharing their memories will be shown.

Lee Ielpi, whose son Jonathan, a New York fireman, was killed that day, will speak during the opening ceremonies, which start at 10 a.m. Friday. A fireman himself, Ielpi searched the tower ruins for months looking for his son, Daniels says. He finally found his body and pulled it from the debris.

"Forty percent of the families never got human remains back," he said.

Tampa Mayor Pam Iorio, Fire Chief Dennis Jones and Police Chief Stephen Hogue are expected to attend the opening. They and other visitors can sign a steel beam that will be incorporated into the memorial building. Donations to the memorial and the museum's building fund also will be collected.

Daniels estimates the complex will cost $500 million. The private fundraising target is $350 million, he said. Of that, $325 million has been raised. The target date for opening is late 2009. To see plans for the memorial and museum, go to www.national911memorial .org.

The most moving part of the exhibit for Daniels is hearing parents explain the facts of Sept. 11 to children too young to remember that day. He has three young children and is touched by watching children ask what happened and why anyone would want to hurt Americans.

Feelings about that day have shifted, he said. Grief has evolved into the recognition of an American milestone.

"It is a historical marker in our history, and it shows how we can come together when the times require that," Daniels said.

Many Americans now think of the world as pre-Sept. 11 and post-Sept. 11, he said.

"The world changed on that day, and that keeps this relevant."

Reporter Karen Haymon Long can be reached at (813) 259-7618 or klong@tampatrib.com.

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