Mount Kisco to Host Tunnel to Towers’ 9/11 Mobile Exhibit Later This Week

Mount Kisco will be the beneficiary of having a unique exhibit come to the village at the end of the week for the upcoming 9/11 anniversary that will bring the history of the day and its aftermath to life.

The Tunnel to Towers Foundation’s 9/11 NEVER FORGET Mobile Exhibit is scheduled to arrive in the village on Thursday morning and will be open to the public for viewing on Saturday and Sunday and for part of Monday afternoon behind the firehouse at 29 Green St.

During the day on Friday and on Monday morning, students from the Bedford Central School District will view the exhibit, which includes artifacts from the Twin Towers such as the buildings’ steel and aluminum façade, radio transmissions from first responders and items found in the rubble after the towers collapsed inside the 83-foot trailer.

It also honors all those who died that day, including the 343 firefighters.

Since the foundation created the exhibit 10 years ago, it has never been in New York State on the anniversary of the terrorist attacks, said Paul Felice, a 45-year member of the Mount Kisco and co-chair of the village’s 9/11 Memorial Committee.

The tour of the exhibit, which takes roughly 20 to 30 minutes, will be guided by former New York City firefighters who responded to the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, and/or worked at Ground Zero afterward.

For those who haven’t had the chance to see the National September 11 Memorial & Museum at the site of the trade center, this would be a good substitute, Felice said.

“The hope is, especially for the schoolchildren, is that for people who didn’t get a chance to go down to Manhattan to see the actual museum, which every American should, the hope would be that local people would make the trip to Mount Kisco, instead of going into Manhattan to get a glimpse of what’s in the museum,” Felice said.

Village resident and former Mount Kisco police chief Robert D’Agostino said he and members of the community’s volunteer fire department learned of the exhibit last year and reached out to the Tunnel to Towers Foundation to potentially bring it to the community.

They started weighing various dates late last year and into early this year, he said. When plans to have it at the Nebraska State Fair fell through for the upcoming weekend, the foundation told fire department representatives that it was available.

Of course, the fire department had to raise the money in order to bring it to the village, but their fundraising efforts throughout the year turned out to be successful.

“We’re excited about it. It’s a great thing for the community, for the county, for the department, for the citizens,” D’Agostino said.

“It provides education for future generations to say, you always have to be ever aware and alert,” he added.

For the general public, the festivities will kick off with a ceremony this Saturday at 9 a.m. After the ceremony, the exhibit will open for the public from about 10 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. on both weekend days and from 1 to 4 p.m. on Monday.

There is no cost to see the exhibit and there are no reservations taken, but visitors will enter on a first-come, first-served basis.

Felice said about 90 people an hour can be accommodated. Visitors will be taken in groups of 30. Tours will be held rain or shine.

Despite the expense, Felice said the department was confident that if they put in the effort, they would make their goal.

“We knew we have the right base of people that we could lean on to raise the money,” he said.

Visitors can park on the street or in a portion of the Blackeby parking lot behind the firehouse. Parking is expected to be tight with the village holding its annual SeptemberFest this weekend.

Tunnel to Towers was established about 20 years ago by the family of the late New York City firefighter Stephen Siller, who was killed when the Twin Towers collapsed on Sept. 11, 2001. He had run on foot through the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel to lower Manhattan despite having been off-duty.

The foundation sponsors a variety of programs and events and has supported the nation’s first responders, veterans and their families by providing mortgage-free homes to those who died in the line of duty.