Journey Ends for 9/11 Memorial Cross

Sculptor Jon Krawczyk’s jwhen his creation, a 500-pound, 14-foot cross remains of the World Trade Center, is installed at St. Peter’s Roman Catholic Church in Manhattan.

The church was damaged in the terrorist on 9/11. As volunteers sifted through the rubble of the World Trade Centers, they found two steel beams forming a cross. Called the World Trade Center Cross or the Ground Zero Cross, it was placed on top of St. Peter’s. On Thursday the cross will be moved to the World Trade Center Memorial and Museum, and Krawczyk’s sculpture will take its place.

A Morris County native, Krawczyk, 40, drove across the country with his sculpture in the bed of his pickup truck. Along with a documentary film crew and a blogger/author chronicling the journey, Krawczyk visited families of the 9/11 victims, monuments and memorials to the 9/11 and Oklahoma City terrorist attacks and police and fire stations from California to Staten Island.

Writer Kevin Kato and director Jason Smith stopped with Krawczyk in Chatham Borough in July to meet with Dan Smith, a volunteer firefighter in the borough who designed the 9/11 Memorial in Memorial Park, and Donna Cali-Charles, the head of the 9/11 Memorial Committee. The two were interviewed for Smith’s documentary film and both placed momentos inside of the cross, which has a receptacle for tokens from those the crew met on their journey.

Smith’s and Cali-Charles’ contributions will become part of St. Peter’s Church when the cross is installed Thursday evening.