Bookends in space and time

The 9/11 steel beam that stopped at Coeur d'Alene Fire Station 3 a week ago had its origin in the same plot of earth where the new One World Trade Center tower currently stands 1,776 feet tall.

The artifact will be integrated into an art installation at a new fire station on Mercer Island, Wash. Stakeholders had believed that the more than 33,000 pounds of steel and concrete had been salvaged from the site where the Two World Trade Center, the South Tower, once stood.

Earlier this week however, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey said the material was from the B-2 parking level of Six World Trade Center, an eight-story building that stood adjacent to the North Tower, then One World Trade Center.

Thomas Guttu, the six-year veteran of the Mercer Island Fire Department, had organized the coast-to-coast transportation of the special cargo, which left New York on June 20.

Guttu arranged for flatbed driver Joey Jay Peterson to stop at firehouses across the country en route to Mercer Island.

Guttu and artist John Sisko met Peterson in Coeur d'Alene where firefighters at Fire Station 3 helped drape the special load with the American Flag for the final leg of its 3,000 journey. Guttu had designed a huge two-sided sign to identify the artifact during its procession through to Mercer Island.

Guttu said the artifact being from a Ground Zero location other than one of the two towers is irrelevant. Rather, said Guttu, it is meaningful that the beam for the artwork came from the base of what is now America's tallest building.

"To be honest with you, I really don't care where the beam came from," Guttu said. "In our instance, I guess we're fortunate to know it came from a place where a building now stands." Other recipients of 9/11 artifacts, he said, sometimes do not know their origins.

The fire that destroyed Six World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, a building that housed the United States Customs Service and other government offices, is evident in the black soot that remains on the cement column covering the steel beam. Seattle-based sculptor John Sisko, who is creating the artwork, said he has not decided how to preserve this feature of the artifact.

Sisko said he is not designing the piece as a memorial, though he understands that some viewers may view it as such.

"You don't want to create a piece with too narrow of a reading," he said. "Over the life expectancy of that fire station, there will be many reasons people go to that fire station, some to get their blood pressure taken, some to take their kids to see the engines.

"Art is a conversation, and public art is a robust conversation."

"It would be pretty incredible to see this beam installed on Mercer Island and know where it was and see the new (One World Trade Center) building," said Guttu, who plans to visit New York City in the future.

"Tommy organized quite a work of public art," Sisko said. "He was really very visual and new exactly how he wanted this to look."

Guttu organized stopovers at fire stations along the route, and Peterson documented the journey with photos he sent back to Washington. The transport, Sisko said, "was theatrical too, because it had the element of time."

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey accepts applications from nonprofits organizations for 9/11 artifacts but the waiting list is extensive, spokeswoman Erica Dumas said.

John Sisko will incorporate the historic material with elements of new stainless steel and LED lighting to form a portal to the new Fire Station 92 on Mercer Island when it reopens in November 2014.

Guttu was on a cattle roundup in Montour, Idaho, on June 13 when he learned that the artifact would be released for shipment. He had less than one week to organize the transport of the 33,000-pound piece.