NEW YORK -- The Cross at Ground Zero was one of thousands of I-beams used to construct the iron skeletons of the World Trade Center towers. This one fell from the fiery, apocalyptic heavens during the Sept. 11 terror attacks and stuck upright in the ground, in a field of similar but smaller crosses.
The iconic cross rose higher than the others above the twisted steel, concrete slabs and human remains. When the smoke subsided and the dust and ashes settled, it emerged as a beacon -- a sacred symbol of, at once, survival and remembrance.
Almost immediately, rescue workers and firefighters scratched out memorial messages on the 20-foot cross. A shrine was created, services were held.
It was later blessed and draped with a sheet-metal shroud from the wreckage, then hoisted atop a concrete stanchion from the destroyed plaza at the corner of Church and Liberty Streets.
The symbolism was obvious. Church, liberty, religious freedom -- concepts that separate America from its attackers. The cross stayed there until October 2006, when it was moved for preliminary construction work at the site.
"It was headed to a warehouse in Long Island, but the firefighters and construction workers objected, so we offered to put it here," said the Rev. Kevin Madigan, the pastor at nearby St. Peter's Church, the city's oldest Catholic parish and where St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, the first American to be canonized, worshipped.
The cross will soon move again, to the National September 11 Memorial & Museum at Ground Zero.
"The way I understand it, the cross will stand in an apse, which will be built around it," Madigan said. "So the cross has to be in place before construction (of the apse) begins."
