“The Art of Memories”
What: Documentary focusing on 9/11 memorials in Beavercreek, Saratoga Springs, N.Y.; New Jersey and Maryland, includes interviews with experts about building the memorials and their effect on people.
Artists: Producer/director Amanda Lin Costa and cinematographer Emon Hassan
Release date: Fall 2012
Website: www.artofmemories film.com/about-the-art-of-memories-film
BEAVERCREEK — Ten years after the day no American can forget, Beavercreek’s connections to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, continue to run deep.
From three firefighters who responded to Ground Zero as part of Ohio’s Task Force One to four soldiers with Beavercreek ties who died fighting terrorism, this city sees itself as much closer to New York City than 603 miles away.
“It was very close and dear to them,” Beavercreek Mayor Scott Hadley said of the firefighters who saw the devastation firsthand.
“They came back and reported to the township and the city the significance of what they did and how it important it was to them.
“In this general area, maybe it’s particularly Beavercreek, I don’t know, the emotions run very high on things like that.”
As one of only a handful of Ohio communities to receive a piece of the World Trade Center, the city Sunday will mark the 10-year anniversary by dedicating its new 9/11 Memorial.
A New York City filmmaker, inspired in 2009 by Beavercreek’s efforts to memorialize 9/11, will be on hand to continue documenting for her upcoming film.
Fire Lt. Brian Seabold recalled how he joined Battalion Chief David Young and firefighter Stan Irvin as part of the task force that arrived at 5 a.m. Sept. 12.
“Our convoy arrived at New York City and as we crossed over George Washington Bridge, you could see Ground Zero from a distance,” he said. “You couldn’t really distinctly see the rubble pile itself, but you could see the haze and you knew definitely you could see Ground Zero and where the World Trade Center used to stand.”
A three-steel beam piece of the North Tower — from between the 101st and 105th floors, just above where American Airlines Flight 11 struck — will stand forever in Beavercreek as part of the city’s memorial.
Beavercreek native and New York City attorney Dan Marderosian and his father, Marc Marderosian, are the forces behind the city’s project and helped Fairborn also receive an artifact.
“I’m inspired, absolutely inspired,” Hadley said of the 24.5-foot high, nearly 3-ton piece of rusted and twisted steel that was erected Aug. 8.
“You need to drive by it during the day. Then you need to return and drive by it at night. It just stands out. It’s significant.”
Soldiers’ sacrifices
Four Army soldiers with Beavercreek connections have died fighting terrorism in the decade since 9/11.
• Staff Sgt. Nino Livaudais, 23, whose mother, Divina Livaudais, lived in Beavercreek, died April 3, 2003, from severe injuries sustained in a car-bomb suicide attack in Iraq.
• Capt. Matthew C. Mattingly, 30, whose father, Dennis Mattingly, lived in Beavercreek, died Sept. 13, 2006, from injuries sustained during a firefight with insurgents near Baghdad.
• Col. Paul M. Kelly, 45, a Carroll High School and University of Dayton graduate, was among 12 soldiers killed Jan. 20, 2007, when a Black Hawk helicopter crashed northeast of Baghdad.
• Spc. Ethan J. Biggers, 22, a Beavercreek High School graduate, died Feb. 24, 2007, of injuries sustained while on combat patrol in Baghdad on March 5, 2006.
Evolution of project
The story of Beavercreek’s efforts to secure and display an artifact caught the eye of New York City filmmaker Amanda Lin Costa.
Costa’s feature-length documentary, “The Art of Memories,” is planned for release in the fall of 2012. She has shot about 50 hours of film in Beavercreek, including the process of the steel being transported to the city.
“Beavercreek actually was the first project we heard about that got us started shooting the documentary,” Costa said.
“It started out as sort of a small film, thinking it would be interesting to see why does a town outside of New York want a piece of steel?
“That’s what I thought was intriguing. But it turned into a larger topic as the steel is distributed all over the world.”
Dan Marderosian spearheaded the project that connected Beavercreek with the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. Mutual friends of Costa and Marderosian sparked the idea in 2009, Costa said.
Steel selection
Beavercreek first selected a different piece of steel, but officials said that section was in the plane’s impact zone and wanted to keep it.
Marderosian selected the current piece after getting a rare glimpse at other artifacts in Hangar 17. “It’s a very vivid and powerful piece,” he said. “It’s immediately recognizable as part of the World Trade Center.”
Costa’s film will follow the planning, delivery of artifacts and construction of memorials in Beavercreek, Saratoga Springs, N.Y., and state projects in New Jersey and Maryland. She said there is a common theme to people seeing one of the more than 1,200 pieces that were catalogued and sent to communities.
“The actual artifacts, I think, have this huge jumping point to create a dialogue,” Costa said. “We all know what steel looks like, and how strong it is, and how it’s always straight and linear, and looks like it can support the weight of a building. Actually seeing that steel in person all crumpled up in a way that you can’t imagine — what destruction could cause that — I think is probably the strongest reminder of the day’s events.”
Connections
Beavercreek elementary teacher Jo Ann Rigano, who was born and raised in the Bronx and whose husband used to work at the Pentagon, has maintained a relationship with NYC Squad 270. Each year, New York firefighter Frank Leeb brings a crosscut out of steel to Rigano’s class at Valley Elementary as a teaching tool.
The Twin Towers are gone, but not forgotten. “Whenever I go to New York, it sounds weird, but I’m always looking for them,” Rigano said. “I know they’re not going to be there. It sounds so stupid, but you’re just envisioning they really should be there. The skyline just looks like there’s two big missing things there.”
Rigano said she did not lose any friends or family in the attacks, but met a woman from New York City while on a group travel tour in Greece. “I said to her, ‘Did you know anybody in the towers?’ Rigano said. “She said to me, ‘my husband.’ She said he was above the floors where the planes hit. ‘We spoke on the phone until the building collapsed. That’s the last time I heard from my husband,’ ” she told Rigano.
The memorial
Young and Seabold picked up the steel a year ago and drove it back to Beavercreek.
“I’m very proud of it,” Seabold said. “I think it looks wonderful what they’ve done with it.”
Hadley said the connections to 9/11 run especially deep in this area due to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. He said when the artifact was paraded through town during last year’s Popcorn Festival, he noticed a man staring at the beams. “He started to reach out and touch it as a lot of people did and he simply pulled his hand back and he said, ‘I can’t touch that,’ ” Hadley said. “He said there are 3,000 souls in that piece of steel.”
A Springfield company, American Steel Fabricators, designed the base, including a square of concrete underground to secure the base.
Hadley said when all phases of the memorial are completed, there will be replicas of the Twin Towers and a piece of black marble that lists all the victims.
Costa said using an artifact as a memorial is also relatively unique and poignant. “I don’t think a gray piece of granite or a decorative bronze of a fireman or the other type of tributes that are done to memorialize that day ... are as strong as when people actually see that steel.”
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