‘A piece of history’: Steel beam from World Trade Center stops in Boston

The weight of 9/11 pulled into the Seaport.

A steel beam from the World Trade Center stopped in Boston Thursday morning, part of a tour to commemorate those lost in the tragedy almost 25 years ago. The beam will end its journey at the White House next week.

The “Steel Across America” tour is organized by the Tunnel to Towers Foundation, which brought the 21-foot, 16,900-pound piece of steel to the Massachusetts Fallen Heroes Memorial in Boston.

“The brotherhood of the FDNY and the Boston Fire Department is long, historic, and it was true that day, on 9/11,” said International Association of Firefighters President Ed Kelly, also a former Boston firefighter, before going on to recall when he learned of the attacks while on duty in the South End of Boston.

Kelly brought up a now-famous photograph of Brooklyn Ladder Company 118 as they traversed the Brooklyn Bridge into Manhattan with smoke billowing out of the two World Trade Center towers in the background.

“Certainly those guys in Ladder 118 knew that their boots were going to be in those stairwells in probably about 10 minutes. They had to have known where they were going. And that, to me, is the epitome of what an American was at 9/11/2001 at 8:46 in the morning. It was about answering a clarion call that needed to be answered,” Kelly continued. “Just like all of the names on this memorial behind me, all the young sons and daughters of Massachusetts, who raised their right hands and took an oath to put our freedoms ahead of their lives.”

Since its inception, the Tunnel to Towers Foundation has built 16 mortgage-free homes for families of fallen first responders and Gold Star families, part of the over 2,000 mortgages the organization has delivered across the country.

The steel beam will make stops in other East Coast cities before making a final stop at the White House on Sept. 8 where it will remain past 9/11.