The Recovery exhibition includes 65 photographs and 56 recovered artifacts, a timeline of events from September 11, 2001, interpretive text panels and an interactive touch screen that contains FBI film of the recovery operations, and sympathy objects from across the world. Many of the items come from the New York State Museum’s extensive collection of objects, art, oral histories and memorial material obtained from Ground Zero and the Fresh Kills Landfill. Many of the items in the larger collection have been used in the museum’s permanent exhibition in Albany, N.Y., the nation’s largest and most comprehensive permanent exhibition about the World Trade Center history and September 11th attacks. Additional significant artifacts are available with the exhibition for suitable institutions.

Collectively, the items in the traveling exhibition help to tell the unheralded story of what happened when the recovery effort moved beyond Ground Zero to Fresh Kills landfill, the “city on the hill” on Staten Island where recovery workers toiled for long, tedious hours at a disheartening task.

The landfill’s name, which means “fresh stream,” came from early Dutch settlers and described an area made up of meadows, marshlands, wetlands and streams. The landfill operated for 50 years, encompassing 3,000 acres on the western shore of Staten Island. The last landfill in New York City, it was slated to close and become a wildlife refuge and park. But, instead, the landfill was declared a crime scene on the morning of September 12, 2001 and trucks began arriving from Ground Zero with the steel and crushed debris that were once the World Trade Center. The landfill was the ideal location for the recovery operation because it was reachable by land and water, it could be secured, and resources of the New York City Department of Sanitation were readily available. Firefighters, ironworkers, engineers, contractors, police officers, and volunteers eventually removed 1.8 million tons of debris from Ground Zero to the landfill. The recovery operation had three objectives: to find human remains, personal effects, and any evidence of the terrorist attack. The recovery operation quickly evolved from simple hand sorting into an elaborate technical sifting and sorting process.

The New York State Museum staff became well acquainted with the army of workers from the New York Police Department (NYPD), FBI, 25 state and federal agencies and 14 private contractors, whose daunting, exacting task was the sorting and examination of the World Trade Center material. Over time, an unprecedented partnership developed between museum staff and law enforcement personnel who became curators-at-large for the museum, setting aside items that were not evidence or personal effects that they thought would help document this event for historic purposes. While collecting, Museum staff documented operations, taking photos of the stark landscape of Fresh Kills, the sorting and sifting operations, hundreds of debris piles and vehicles, and the people involved in the recovery process.

The resulting exhibition includes a recovered American flag, several World Trade Center souvenirs, building keys, signs, guns and sections of the building facade, marble floor and airplane fragments. Among the rescue-related objects are a NYPD radio holster, a firefighter’s Scott pack (oxygen tank) and fragments of a destroyed fire truck. A touch screen interactive contains FBI film of the operations and an inventory of objects in the museum’s collections.

Requests for information on the traveling exhibition may be made through the New York State Museum’s exhibitions office, 518-402-5952 or email Mark Schaming