BREWER, Maine — A mangled 6-foot steel beam taken from the wreckage of the doomed twin towers in New York City will be on public display Tuesday, the 11th anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks, according to Brewer Fire Chief Gary Parent.

The steel beam —- housed in the Brewer Public Safety Museum at the Brewer Public Safety Building — once provided structural support for the World Trade Center and now provides inspirational support for local firefighters, police, ambulance crews and residents who remember those who lost their lives on Sept. 11, 2001.

“In remembrance of 9/11, the Brewer Public Safety Museum will be open between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m.” for those who want to pay tribute, Parent said, noting that he has seen his firefighters and members of the public touching the memorial beam when passing by it. “We’ll have somebody in the museum the entire day if people want to come by and look at the steel.”

Firefighters from all over Maine — including Brewer — volunteered to go to New York City after the twin towers fell, but the National Association of Firefighters sent out a message that put them in a holding pattern because of the influx of volunteers.

The Brewer Public Safety Building has three pieces of the World Trade Center’s twin towers on display to honor all who lost their lives in the Sept. 11 attacks.

The largest World Trade Center relic on display in Brewer is an 18-foot-long section of a steel beam that still bears the yellow stenciled lettering it had when it was installed during the towers’ construction in the late 1960s and early 1970s. It is displayed in the fire department’s truck bay.

The second piece, part of the towers’ aluminum exterior, is displayed on the police department side of the complex, and the third piece in housed in the museum.

“They can look at it and they can touch it,” Parent said of the historic steel in February during the museum’s grand opening.

A copyright article from the Bangor Daily News by Nok-Noi Ricker