Scattered Steel: The Afterlife of the World Trade Center

In *Scattered Steel: The Afterlife of the World Trade Center,* author Max Holleran, Senior Lecturer of Social Policy at the University of Melbourne, presents a unique perspective on the tragedy of 9/11. Co-authored with his twin brother, Samuel Holleran, the book explores the never-before-told story of what happened to the physical remains of the World Trade Center towers after their collapse in 2001. Following the events of September 11th, some of the steel pieces were stored for about a decade in a hangar at JFK airport. Eventually, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey began releasing the steel to communities across the U.S. to create memorials and monuments dedicated to those affected by the tragedy. As for the inspiration behind the book, Holleran explained, "We both lived in New York the most of any other place in our lives... and we sort of looked at it as something that was interesting because 9/11 affected the city so much... my brother was working as an artist and he saw a call for artists who design these monuments, sculptures, from World Trade Center steel... he was immediately interested because it didn't look like any kind of call for artists and for monuments like he had ever seen before... and then for me... I was interested in the politics of it. So what does commemoration of 9/11 mean, how is it involved in the war on terror... and so we decided to investigate."

Regarding the locations of these monuments, Holleran pointed out that many of them are in public areas such as civic centers, fire stations, public promenades, and roundabouts. "A lot of them are in fairly suburban locations and they make a bit of public space for people... the most memorials are in the tri-state area, as well as in Florida..." The artists who worked on these projects also had various reasons for designing the monuments. "Some of the people who made them were just interested in having a piece of history... and they also were interested in making public spaces, so there are some people who made the memorials because they thought that it was educationally important for their community, but also because they wanted to have a little pocket park or a square where they could put a sculpture and have a couple of benches... people could take a stroll and sit there, and it kind of blended into their fabric."