Patriot Limited Edition Hammer Commemorating 911

Patriot Limited Edition Hammer by Dude Tools.  The box relates that it is made in America and hand painted.  The star pattern on both sides of the hammer head commemorates 911.  There are 9 stars on one side and 11 stars on the other side.  This is the first example I have seen of a 911 commemorative item that is a tool.  In general, a hammer seems like a compelling object that speaks to building (or rebuilding).  A hammer is a tool of the trades and is an object that is used everyday.  Calling this hammer patriot brands it clearly as a tool of recovery and rebuilding by connecting it 911.  Overall, this is a great example of the tremendous influence of 911 on all forms of material culture, especially everyday, commonly used items (like a tool).

Steinbach Signed 9/11 Tribute Firefighter Nutcracker Music Box

Limited edition and signed, this nutcracker is a tribute made by Steinbach in 2002 (made in Germany).  This is clearly a firefighter tribute. It features a music box, which is the hose coil hanging from his hand.

North Branch Volunteer Fire Co FIRE HOSE NOZZLE MUG September 11

Tribute fire hose nozzle shaped mug from North Branch Volunteer Fire Co (NY) in memory of September 11 victims (fallen brothers).  Also tribute to anniversary of the company.

Fire department tributes are very common regarding 9/11 material culture, but this mug is unique in shape (but probably not much for function).

9/11 Memorabilia Makers Seek a Delicate Balance

Fourteen years after the terrorist attacks, souvenir shops still offer 9/11-related products. Inc. spoke to manufacturers and retailers about the thin line between selling memorabilia and tragedy.

Will Yakowicz is a staff writer for Inc. magazine. He has reported from the West Bank and Moscow for Tablet Magazine; covered business, crime, and local politics for The Brooklyn Paper; and was the editor of Park… Full bio

@WillYakowicz

Staff writer, Inc.@WillYakowicz

In America, everything is branded. Even the worst terrorist attacks this country has ever seen have become a vehicle for commerce. Whether you think it's an important way to remember or an insensitive cash grab, various businesses have been selling merchandise related to 9/11 since almost immediately after the attacks.    

But 14 years on, the niche industry of September 11 memorabilia is shifting its focus away from the Twin Towers to a new symbol, the recently opened Freedom Tower. (Just don't call it the Freedom Tower anymore. In its marketing efforts, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which owns the building, is pushing the skyscraper's official name, 1 World Trade Center, in an effort to separate itself from the Twin Towers and the terrorist attacks.) 

Names aside, companies in this industry say consumer preferences have largely moved on too.
"Oddly enough, the customer base doesn't want anything Twin Tower-related," says Debbie Goldfeder, vice president of sales and marketing for Torkia International, a manufacturer and wholesaler of New York City souvenirs and apparel. Her company is the largest license holder of NYPD, FDNY, MTA, and I Love New York merchandise.
 
Many other memorabilia sellers--part of more than a $1 billion souvenir industry, according to Torkia senior vice president Lloyd Haymes--have had a similar experience and adjusted their inventory accordingly. Nathan Harkrader, co-founder of souvenir e-commerce site NYCwebstore.com, launched his company in November 2001. Initially, he says, the majority of his customers asked for September 11-related merchandise--T-shirts, Twin Tower statues, and patriotic souvenirs. But by 2005, he realized his clientele was fragmenting. Many people were offended by 9/11 products, including items like a snow globe with the Twin Towers inside. He decided to cut most of the products, especially ones that seemed exploitative.

"We were always appropriately sensitive to customer demand and emotions. We avoided selling tacky or cheap, or other merchandise that was playing too much on tragedy," says Harkrader, whose company donates a percentage of proceeds from all 9/11-related products to September 11-related charities. "We passed on most products manufacturers were making. We found that it was best to keep items that are simple and tactful."

Initially, September 11-related items started as 30 percent of NYCwebstore.com's business. Today, they account for only 1 percent of monthly revenue. The figure increases to 5 percent in August and September, but it's still a smaller spike than in the company's early years.
While one once-marketable symbol of the Twin Towers has fallen out of favor, interest in 1WTC products has increased steadily since the building's construction. The "Freedom Tower" has come to be a powerful representation of the country's resilience, and is now present in every product that features the Manhattan skyline.

Harkrader believes the transition is a natural progression of a nation's mourning over the years. "People [who are old enough] keep the Twin Towers close to their heart," he says. "But there are more people looking forward for pride, hope, and healing in the Freedom Tower."

To be sure, there is a line most manufacturers and retailers don't want to cross, no matter what images sell well. For Tom Ryan, a retired 25-year veteran of the New York City Fire Department and a first responder who lost many friends during the attacks, that line is thin. Ryan says he supports tasteful merchandise sold by the 9/11 Memorial & Museum gift shop and by stores that pay New York City and state license royalties because money goes back to charities and police and fire funds.

"When I see people with an FDNY shirt or button I appreciate it. To me, I feel as though people are thinking about what happened and everyone we lost that day and the many people we lost since [due to complications from breathing the air at Ground Zero]," he says.
 
Some merchants have only a single motive, though. "When you have people who are just selling things to make a profit without putting thought into what happened, it bothers me," Ryan says. "The illegal vendors, the guy in the street trying to pull people aside to sell [unlicensed products], is offensive."

Business owners based near the memorial site know well the vendors who peddle unlicensed 9/11 books and other souvenirs to tourists. John Costalas, the longtime owner of Essex World Café on Liberty Street, which functioned as a makeshift hospital after the towers came down, acknowledged that that these men, mostly immigrants, don't have many choices for work. Still, the gray market for tragedy rankles him.

"What people need to remember is that this is hallowed ground," he says. "It should be respected."

IceGators Hockey Jersey 9/11 Tribute

Louisiana IceGators 9/11 tribute hockey jersey.

Swarovski The Brave Heart Pin

Swarovski's Brave Heart Pin was created as a tribute to the courageous men and women who gave their lives to save others during the tragic events of September 11th, 2001.

Swarovski goes on to state that they will donate $100,000 from the sales of these pins to the September 11th Fund, which was established by United Way and the New York Community Trust.  Another example of "corporate curating," and a company creating a product and tying it to 9/11, forever connecting themselves to this event and its material culture impact.  Overall, great example of the impact of 9/11 and its use for driving consumerism.

9/11 Tribute Wilson NFL Football

 

 

 

Special tribute NFL Wilson football offered on the 10th Anniversary of September 11th.

Remembrance & Renewal: American Express After 9/11

American Express created this tribute book reflecting on the impact on their company and paying tribute, including to their employees who died.  It features a tribute dvd too.

Remembrance & Renewal: American Express After 9/11

For a company whose headquarters was across the street from the World Trade Center on September 11th, create a one year anniversary book and interactive documentary -- to help employees heal, pay homage, and capture the story of their company's experience. The spring and summer of 2002 was a very intense time in New York City. American Express had lost eleven people in the September 11th attacks. The 4,000 employees based at their Manhattan headquarters had been transferred to a dozen office spaces across the tri-state area as their damaged building -- located directly across the street from the fallen World Trade Center -- went under reconstruction. American Express leadership wanted to get their people back "home" by the end of the summer. They also wanted to help them deal with the complex emotions that would come with that return. VSA worked with American Express to tell the unique stories of their employees on that fateful day: those who helped clients that were stranded abroad when the U.S. grounded flights, the engineer who would lead headquarters' reconstruction, the woman from Human Resources who was working to recover from her near-fatal injuries, those eleven Corporate Travel employees who lost their lives in the North Tower. Safeguarding that the book content aligned with the new media piece, I attended employee interviews and helped architect the audio and visual media within the interactive documentary. I also supported client/team communications and managed the technical integration with the programming vendor.

Cantor Fitzgerald Commemorative WTC Steel

Cantor Fitzgerald and bgc commemorative box with world trade center steel.  This special tribute was given to employees.  I'm not exactly sure how many were created or distributed, but this is a striking 9/11 example from corporate America.  The steel cube weighs about one pound.  

Cantor Fitzgerald's corporate headquarters and New York City office,[7][8] on the 101st-105th floors of One World Trade Center in Lower Manhattan (2-6 floors above the impact zone of a hijacked airliner), were destroyed during the September 11, 2001 attacks. Seconds after Cantor's building was struck by the plane, a Goldman Sachs server issued an alert saying that its trading system had gone offline because it wasn't able to connect with a Cantor server.[9][10][11] Cantor Fitzgerald lost over two-thirds of its workforce, considerably more than any of the other World Trade Center tenants or the New York City Police Department and New York City Fire Department. CEO and chairman Howard Lutnick, whose brother was among those killed, vowed to keep the company alive, and the company was able to bring its trading markets back online within a week. On September 19, Cantor Fitzgerald made a pledge to distribute 25 percent of the firm's profits for the next five years, and committed to paying for ten years of health care, for the benefit of the families of its 658 former Cantor Fitzgerald, eSpeed, and TradeSpark employees (profits which would otherwise have been distributed to the Cantor Fitzgerald partners).[12] In 2006, the company completed its promise, having paid a total of $180 million[12] (and an additional $17 million from a relief fund run by Lutnick's sister, Edie).[13]

Before the attacks, Cantor handled about one-quarter of the daily transactions in the multi-trillion dollar treasury security market. Cantor has since rebuilt its infrastructure, thanks in part to the efforts of its London office,[14] and now has its headquarters in midtown Manhattan. The company's effort to regain its footing is the subject of Tom Barbash's 2003 book On Top of the World: Cantor Fitzgerald, Howard Lutnick, and 9/11: A Story of Loss and Renewal.

9/11: the world speaks book

Publication Date: August 16, 2011
Almost two million people from across the United States and around the world have come through the museum galleries of the Tribute WTC Visitor Center since it opened in September 2006 right across the street from the World Trade Center site. Many of these visitors have written their poignant reflections about the impact of September 11th on visitor cards that are collected in the Center’s final gallery. To date, the Center has collected 200,000 cards written in 48 languages by people from 120 countries.

For the first time ever, this book brings together a choice selection of these cards, many of which talk about the inspiration people find in the outpouring of humanity in response to September 11th. In seeing the selflessness of first responders and ordinary citizens who rushed to help strangers and friends on that day, and in the many months of recovery that followed, adults and young people write that they have been inspired to help others in their communities and around the world.

Moving us toward the future with empathy and hope, 9/11: The World Speaks is a remarkable collection of cards that include elaborate drawings, stories of personal experiences on September 11th, notes written by family members of victims, and statements by people of all cultural backgrounds decrying the use of violence. The book also features a preface from Tom Brokaw.

About the Tribute WTC Visitor Center
The Tribute WTC Visitor Center is located at 120 Liberty Street in New York City along the south side of the World Trade Center site. The Tribute Center was created by the September 11th Families' Association, a section 501(c)3 non-profit corporation, to share the personal stories of victims, survivors, rescue and recovery workers, residents of Lower Manhattan, and volunteers who responded to help in the recovery. Today, volunteers representing all of these constituencies share their stories daily with visitors to the Tribute Center and on our walking tours of the World Trade Center site. Volunteers share the authentic experiences of those most affected by the events of February 26, 1993, and September 11, 2001. In the Tribute Center, visitors experience person-to-person accounts through videos, audios, and printed quotations. The stories recount the dynamism of the World Trade Center community prior to September 11, 2001, the day of the attacks, the nine months of recovery, and a poignant memorial to the victims where photographs contributed by their families are displayed. The Tribute Center concludes by offering visitors a place to engage in dialogue about 9/11 and share their own feelings and thoughts about the future.
The Tribute Center conveys the courage, grief, and heroism of those who responded to the tragedy and the steps taken towards working for a more peaceful world by many of those impacted by the events. The Tribute Center welcomes visitors seven days a week. Please visit our website for details: www.tributewtc.org. The Tribute Center's educational materials for young people emphasize the humanity and compassion that arose in response to the attacks, www.tributewtc.org/programs/toolkit.html.

About Lee Ielpi
Lee Ielpi is a native of Great Neck, New York. Lee is a father of two girls, Anne Marie and Melissa, and two boys, Jonathan and Brendan, and grandfather of seven grandchildren. Lee volunteered with his local Great Neck Vigilant Fire Department and spent his career as a firefighter with the New York City Fire Department serving as a member of Rescue 2. Since losing his son Jonathan Lee Ielpi, Squad 288, FDNY, at the World Trade Center, Lee has dedicated himself to responding to the attacks on the World Trade Center with an eye towards making tomorrow a better day. He joined with the September 11th Families' Association in November 2001 to represent the interests of the 9/11 community. Lee has served on the Board of Directors since 2002 and has served as the Board President since 2007. In 2004, Lee along with Jennifer Adams co-founded the Tribute WTC Visitor Center.

Forewordy by Mayor Rudolph Giuliani. Preface by Tom Brokaw.

Maker's Mark Tribute Bottle Red, White and Blue

Maker's Mark one liter tribute bottle with red, white and blue wax seal.  Bottle dated April 8, 2002.  These tribute bottles came out shortly after September 11th.

Ultimate Spider-Man Issue: 9/11 Tribute

This Ultimate Spider-Man issue was available for free, and features a 9/11 tribute on the cover.