25 years after 9/11, Columbus memorial keeps history in steel

Pieces of Sept. 11, 2001 linger across the country even 25 years later, from firsthand flashbacks of millions in the city when the World Trade Center buildings fell to memories of learning about the incident a thousand miles away. Pieces literally linger in several art installations across the country as well, as tributes to the lives lost in the national tragedy — like the one at Pawnee Park in Columbus, near the Andrew Jackson Higgins Memorial. Inside a 6-foot wall stands steel from the World Trade Center, supported by local steel from DuoLift, with a bronze "Freedom Eagle" on top sculpted by Fred Hoppe. The monument was dedicated on Aug. 16, 2003. The original idea was formed shortly before 9/11, said Jim Hellbusch, owner of DuoLift, when he and Hoppe were looking at a structure on which to perch the eagle. They had landed on a zigzag perch for the eagle when the tragedy struck and they decided it should be a tribute to the more than 2,750 who lost their lives that day. "I made the base of that eagle to be able to withstand the weight of whatever steel I could get from the World Trade Center, and so then we did that. We put the wall around the base of it and put a heavy foundation in so it takes care of everything," Hellbusch said. Others joined in. HDR, Inc., provided engineering work. Pat Brewer was "a big help" and then-congressman Tom Osborne helped acquire the steel, a pivotal relationship toward Hellbusch's goal of getting steel from the World Trade Center. It was an arduous task even finding the steel, but he finally found a scrapyard with material. He made arrangements to get it, contacting Tony Raimondo Sr. at Behlen Mfg. Co., who had a truck in the area available to pick it up. From there, they made the trek to New York to retrieve the scrap. "When we got there, the guard said 'We don't have any.' And I said, 'Now, wait a minute...' I talked to several people there, and there's several pieces of steel there, and I needed it. I already knew the design I was going to do," Hellbusch said. He asked the scrapyard worker to "check in the back" and said that any steel would do, not just large pieces. After some searching, several pieces came back, though shorter than what was planned. "We got five pieces, about a 10-footer and three or four 4-footers, and this was not what I had in mind, but I had to rethink my sculpture," Hellbusch said. "So I did, and I had to use some regular, some of my regular steel to lift it up high enough so all the trade center steel would be seen over the six foot high walls." As they worked on the steel, bits of rubble flaked off, containing artifacts from the buildings' destruction, something very impactful for the people cleaning it up. "We found countertop pieces, pieces of a mirror, we found wire hangers for hanging file folders, all twisted up and burned up, and various miscellaneous pieces of material about the size of a golf ball," Hellbusch said. "And then I found something that really got me. It was a tooth." He called Osborne and asked what to do, and he was instructed they should be kept and treated with respect. In the Platte County Historical Museum, a display contains some pieces of the rubble including the tooth and button, Hellbusch said — and only he knows which is which. A box was constructed of quarter-inch steel plates, with other artifacts placed inside. "I put the rest of that rubble in that box, and then I welded it shut, and I buried it in the bottom of the memorial out there, inside the wall," Hellbusch said. "We dug a hole and we buried it down there because you bury terrorism. You bury terrorism." The steel had been sitting in a scrapyard for months by this point and gotten rusty, and the new steel they added was not. Hellbusch realized this shortly before the sculpture was to be unveiled and dedicated, and went out at 2:30 a.m. to wipe muriatic acid on the new steel so it would match. By morning, it looked the same. Perched atop the steel spire, a bronze eagle with a 7-foot wingspan soars over the wreckage, a symbol of freedom, hence its name. Fred Hoppe, area sculptor of 30-some years, has made many eagles in his time. His work can also be found at the Columbus police station and Pinnacle Bank on 23rd Street, President George W. Bush's office and even Dolly Parton's raptor sanctuary in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. It all starts with a reference, Hoppe said, something he learned when he attempted to paint years ago. "Why the sculptures look good is because I say it's about reference, reference, reference," Hoppe said. "I painted when I was younger and I used to think that you got some paints and you just looked at a canvas and remembered what some old guy with a cane looked like and painted him and they just turned out terrible." Most of his work today is focused on soldiers or eagles, something Hoppe said there's been a marked demand for since 9/11. Recently, he finished a sculpture of the flag raising at Iwo Jima, and used the iconic photograph as his main reference. Several soldiers of Hoppe's design actually stand by the eagle in Columbus, all assembled in a similar manner, like the Gulf War soldiers or the D-Day soldiers running by the Higgins boat. For soldiers, Hoppe will use real faces as a reference — sometimes actual service members, like his recent project sculpting two Iwo Jima soldiers for Tulsa, which took some work to replicate as the main picture of the group features them facing away from the camera. He will also use real uniforms on a mannequin to get just the right folds and creases for the movement he's simulating — a concept called "drapery." Hoppe starts with an armature, usually made from wood planks and thick telephone wire. When he has the basic shape, he layers clay on in a process called "blocking." For the soldiers, he will also use foam for the basic shape. He uses photographs as a reference, pulling influence from many at a time, and measuring each part precisely to match the images. From there, a thin layer of rubber is applied, then plaster. Wax is poured into the pieces of the mold. Then, the pieces of the wax figure are dipped in a ceramic slurry — eight coats over eight days, with a silicone coating on that. The wax is melted out of the mold and it's ready to be filled with bronze at a foundry. "It looks like a big eggshell, and you beat that off with the hammer, and then you've got your pieces there with the detail. Then you've got to weld those together," Hoppe said. The pieces are welded together and ground to match the finish of the rest of the bronze, then a solution called patina is applied to the metal and the statue is blowtorched to give it that signature brown color. The whole process takes six months, give or take, and the finished statues come out around 300 pounds, despite being a thin layer of bronze. Hoppe said he's focused his career on soldiers and eagles often for various patriotic displays because it's something he likes to see communities put up. His soldiers stand guard at veterans' memorials and displays around the country — and even in Europe on the infamous D-Day beaches. "It gives me great joy to do these while I'm still alive because these men have fought and died for this freedom we all take advantage of, and I wish they did more stuff to honor them," Hoppe said. As for the 9/11 memorial, he remembers the day it was dedicated, when people came to see the unveiling. "Just like anything else, you know, you have your patriotic people in town come out," Hoppe said. "A lot of people that came out were in the military or their father or brother, uncle's in the military and it was well received." Hoppe's father was injured in World War II, and he sees many others with similar experiences encounter these memorials and immediately get emotional, whether over the lives lost in the tragedy or those given in its wake in military deployments. "A lot of people, when you unveil it, they will see that, they'll start crying," Hoppe said. "They get tears in their eyes, and some people will walk up to the (running soldiers) one in Branson and they'll turn around, start crying, and walk away and they'll come back." "They get very emotional, so you know that it's doing its job. It's making them realize the sacrifice that the country's made with our young soldiers and veterans."