The Afterlife of the World Trade Center (HAA Colloquium)

Over 1,800 pieces of steel salvaged from the World Trade Center are scattered across the U.S., incorporated into memorials that sit outside fire stations, on pedestrian malls, in median strips, and in other unexpected places. This presentation draws from the new book Scattered Steel: The Afterlife of the World Trade Center (Cornell, 2026) and investigates how twisted and bent beams were picked from the ruins at Ground Zero by a special curatorial team, archived for years in a hangar at JFK airport, and finally dispersed to communities around the country. While these pieces account for less than 5% of the steel recovered at the site (the vast majority was recycled overseas), the distribution remains one of the largest of its kind.

Drawing on the idea of the modern relic, Samuel Holleran explores how people who experienced the 9/11 attacks on television sought out corporeal forms of mourning and remembrance, receiving steel sections with honor guards and encouraging the laying of hands at anniversary ceremonies. He details the ‘gifting’ program established by the Port Authority, the interstate agency that owns the land on which the towers stood, that allowed civic groups, firehouses, and schools to obtain steel and build local memorials. Many of these were executed by first-time memorial-makers and craftspeople who established a genre of D.I.Y. memorialization that runs counter to the big budget commemorative projects produced during the same period. The talk also considers what it means to sanctify matter, and how small memorials might shape our future understandings of a globally experienced, highly visual trauma.

About the Speaker: Samuel Holleran is a Research Fellow in Urban Design at RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia, and a 2026 Fine Fellow in the Jewish Studies Program at the Univeristy of Pittsburgh.