Trade Center Beams to Shore N.M. Bells

ALBUQUERQUE -- Hundreds of people gathered Saturday to bless two steel beams from the collapsed World Trade Center that will be used in rebuilding a church bell tower in the city’s most historic neighborhood.

Archbishop Michael Sheehan sprinkled the 20-foot beams with holy water and sacred oil while a 60- by 40-foot U.S. flag was hoisted. The beams were donated by New York City.

He said the new bell tower will stand as a memorial for victims of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in New York.

“Yes, evil is powerful. We know this from Sept. 11,” Sheehan said. “I believe good is even more powerful. From that destruction there will rise up new life and new spirit here in Barelas.”

The 400-year-old Roman Catholic Church of the Sacred Heart and its two bell towers, in the historic Barelas neighborhood, were razed in the 1970s because of structural problems.

The new bell tower will be built in a former gymnasium across the street, where the sanctuary was moved after the church was razed.

When the church was razed, officials lost track of its two bronze bells. One of them was found recently and will be housed in the new tower, which will include a list of the more than 2,800 people who died in the trade center collapse.

State Sen. Manny Aragon, who came up with the idea, said the beams should be built into the bell tower to give “a feeling of the two towers where they came from.”

Trucker Terry Stunkard, who hauled the beams across the country, said the trip was the greatest thing he’s ever done.

“The hauling wasn’t like hauling beams. You kept thinking about the people” who died in the trade center, Stunkard said. “Everybody I’d run into--kids--they wanted to climb on them. They wanted a speck of dirt from them.”

Organizers have raised about half of the $100,000 needed for the project, which is expected to be completed by June 2003.