College remembers 9/11 with site artifacts

An entire country lies between the Honolulu Community College campus and the East Coast locations where terrorist attacks stabbed at the heart of a nation on Sept. 11, 2001. But small artifacts from all three attack sites honor the victims in a memorial in a quiet corner of the Iwilei campus.

Under the direction of Danny Aiu, an associate professor in the Department of Sheet Metal and Plastics, students created a stainless-steel and Plexiglas memorial 10 years ago that contains a piece of concrete from Tower 2 of the World Trade Center, a roof tile from the Pentagon and flowers and dirt from the Pennsylvania field where United Airlines Flight 93 crashed, killing 44 people, including HCC alumna Christine Snyder.

A replica of a U.S. flag is on the front of the memorial along with the words “We Remember.” — Mike Gordon