On September 22, 2001, eleven days after the towers fell, volunteers unfurled an American flag down the side of the Brooks Brothers building overlooking Ground Zero. It measured 60 feet by 30 feet and weighed 92 pounds. Valley Forge Flags of Pennsylvania made and donated it for the volunteers and first responders working below. The crews clearing the site worked beneath it for the next two months. The volunteers who hung it were New Yorkers who came to help however they could, and many stayed through the entire nine-month cleanup. When repairs began on the damaged building, the flag came down. For the next ten years the volunteers carried it to veterans’ parades, aboard the USS Intrepid, and to September tributes around the city. In 2011 it was retired. This September marks 25 years, and Valley Forge says the flag will get a permanent public home. Flags fly at half-staff today, sunrise to sunset, for Patriot Day. If you’re lowering one at your station, school, or town hall, our flag flying calendar has every date for the year, half-staff days included. |
