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Surveyors hired by the owner of 51 Park Place in lower Manhattan discovered in a small alley behind the building this piece of landing gear from one of the two commercial planes that were flown into the World Trade Center by terrorists on Sept. 11, 2001.NYPD
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The chunk of landing gear was found in this narrow alley between buildings on Park Place and Murray Street.NYPD
A piece of landing gear from one of the planes that crashed into the World Trade Center towers on 9/11 has been discovered in a small alley near Ground Zero more than 11 years after the terror attacks.
The rusted 5-foot-tall fragment was discovered between the rear of buildings on Park Place and Murray Street in lower Manhattan on Friday, the New York Police Department said.
The twisted metal part has cables and levers on it and is about 3 feet wide and 1.5 feet deep. It includes a clearly visible Boeing Co. identification number, New York Police Department spokesman Paul Browne said Friday.
"The odds of this being wedged between there is amazing," Browne said, adding it was not surprising that it went undiscovered for more than a decade given the location. "It had to have fallen just the right way to make it into that space."
Browne said other World Trade Center wreckage had been discovered nearby, possibly even at the same buildings, in years past.
Officials say that the part was found at 11 a.m. Friday, when surveyors hired by the owner of 51 Park Place reported what they thought was damaged machinery behind the building. It was wedged between a mosque site and a luxury high-rise apartment building near the World Trade Center.
When plans for the mosque and community center were first announced several years ago, a furor erupted. Opponents protested that putting a Muslim facility near ground zero showed disrespect. Supporters cited freedom of religion and said it wasn't too close to where Islamic extremists attacked on Sept. 11.
In a statement, Sharif El-Gamal, the president of Soho Properties, which owns 51 Park Place, said workers called the city and the police as soon as they discovered the landing gear. He said the company is cooperating with the city and the police to make sure the piece of equipment "is removed with care as quickly and effectively as possible."
The medical examiner's office will complete a health and safety evaluation to determine whether to sift the soil around the buildings for possible human remains, police said.
Patricia Riley, whose sister Lorraine Riley was killed in the Sept. 11 attacks, said the landing gear discovery was "very strange."
"Twelve years later we are still finding remnants of the attack on our country," she said. "For years to come we'll continue to find things that we didn't see before. Hopefully they'll serve as a reminder that we have to stay vigilant."
Outside the Islamic center building, known as Park51, a police officer stood next to the door on Friday and a police barricade was set up to contain the many journalists who had gathered to try to see the piece of the plane.
The landing gear could not be seen from the sidewalk so commuters rushed by and looked quizzically at the gathering.
The Park51 space, a former Burlington Coat factory, is a five-story, mildly rundown building. The piece of plane is wedged in an alley space between that building and 50 Murray St., which is a luxury loft rental building.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
