October 29, 2002 In Hazard Suits, Preserving History's Dusty Jeans By GLENN COLLINS
A time capsule from Sept. 11, 2001, the last memorial to stand as testimony to what was left when the smoke lifted at the World Trade Center, was removed yesterday by a team of experts in respirators and hazardous-materials suits. The Chelsea Jeans memorial, a glassed-in collection of dust-covered, flag-bearing Ralph Lauren sweaters and Levi's jeans, was painstakingly dismantled, and workers began moving it to the New-York Historical Society. Although Chelsea Jeans has served as a gripping shrine for hundreds of thousands of visitors from around the world, the store's proprietor, David Cohen, shuttered his doors on Saturday, a victim of hard times in Lower Manhattan. The removal was unprecedented in every respect. The fragility of the layers of dust and the toxicity of the remnants posed problems in preserving the materials and perils to the health of anyone exposed to them. "Usually people ask us to clean up toxic dust," said Chris Myers, a manager at Op-Tech Environmental Services, a hazardous-waste cleanup company in Syracuse. "But this is the first time we've ever been asked to preserve toxic dust." Ms. Myers was supervising a crew of four moving the material. The challenge "is a first for us," said Amy A. Weinstein, a curator from the historical society, which has preserved a host of shrines and ground-zero memorabilia. "We've dealt with complex issues before, but not to this degree." No one will ever know how many people stepped into Chelsea Jeans after 9/11, gazed and meditated a bit, then moved on. Mr. Cohen calculated that hundreds of thousands visited, many of them foreigners clutching guidebooks billing the memorial as a ground-zero essential. In the early months, there were lines out the Chelsea Jeans door at 196 Broadway, near the corner of Fulton Street. The store opened a year and a half before the terrorist attack and was closed for two months after it. Mr. Cohen had to destroy his inventory, which was coated with pulverized debris from the World Trade Center. But Mr. Cohen spent about $10,000 to seal a portion of the store that held $1,000 worth of merchandise. "I wanted it preserved just as it was, to freeze this moment in history,'` Mr. Cohen said. "I knew that no one would even remember how bad, how ugly, how sad Sept. 11 was." He also intended the shrine "as a memorial against terrorism everywhere," he said, and he posted news articles about the murder of his 13-year-old Israeli niece, Karen Cohen, on the wall. In March 1997, she was the victim of a Jordanian soldier who opened fire on Jewish schoolgirls, killing seven. For a while after Sept. 11, Mr. Cohen's landlord, TLS Properties, a division of the Riese Organization, reduced the monthly rent of $25,000 by a third, but ultimately there were not enough customers to make a profit, Mr. Cohen, 39, said. "The business never truly recovered," he said. Revenue plummeted 40 percent below the level before Sept. 11, he said. Ms. Weinstein said the historical society's first assessment suggested that the problems of toxicity and removal were so formidable that only part of the exhibit could be saved. "We worried about what would happen to the dust, which consists of pulverized building materials, and might contain asbestos and other unknown toxic substances," she said. The historical society rejected the idea of trying to spray the dust with a fixative "because it would change the appearance, making it look glossy or wet," Ms. Weinstein said. Other options seemed too complex or too far ahead of the technological curve. But after further consultation with hazardous-waste experts, the historical society decided to save the entire memorial because it would help explain to people in the future "so viscerally what happened on Sept. 11," Ms. Weinstein said. "It's so important to preserve the texture and feel and color of the dust on the Ralph Lauren sweaters with the American flag, and on the Levi's," she added. "That's the American uniform." The historical society hired a Manhattan company, the Displayers, to create five storage boxes the same size as the clothing racks and shelves. They are large enough to permit the materials to be gently moved into them, disturbing the clothes very little. The airtight cases can be sealed to protect the staff from any toxicity during storage. Yesterday the crew from Op-Tech created a plastic barrier of polyethylene six millimeters thick around the space, before removing the glass. Four workers wore dust booties and respirators with exotic filters to remove toxic and organic particles. Crew members also wore suits called the Kleen Guard Ultra "to prevent any static that might cause the dust to attach itself to the suit," Ms. Myers said. She said she was "terribly overwhelmed" the first time she saw the memorial during an assessment visit on Oct. 15. Op-Tech has donated its services. "We were grateful to be asked, and we wanted to help," Ms. Myers said. As a result, the removal of the material will cost the historical society less than $10,000, mostly for the cases. The process is expected to take two days. Eventually, the recreated memorial - in an airtight environment - will find its way into a future exhibition, "Unfinished Lives," which the historical society is planning. After that, Mr. Cohen said, "We hope it can be part of a ground-zero memorial." Yesterday, Mr. Cohen seemed distressed that his 50-square-foot diorama of tragedy had to be moved. "But I also feel relieved," he said, adding, "It was a very tough year, and I want to move on." Copyright The New York Times Company
