While Quincy, Ill. is far from the actual locations of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, it has a municipal link to that day. The town is the site of a Harris Broadcast antenna manufacturing facility. That facility built some of the RF hardware at the World Trade Center, a major New York City broadcast transmission site at the time.
On Sept. 11, 2011, a surviving 15-foot long, 7,000 pound piece of a Quincy-manufactured TV antenna structure from World Trade Center #1 will be the focus of a 9/11 memorial dedication ceremony by the city.
Former Harris – Quincy employee, Jeff Steinkamp, now Quincy city engineer, was key in applying for and obtaining the part from the collected debris.
Rex Niekamp, value engineering manager for Harris, commented on Harris’ participation in the dedication (and an earlier ceremony), “When Jeff asked if Harris would be interested in the city’s effort to erect a memorial, I knew this was an effort we needed to support … To place my hands on an artifact that is an actual piece of the antenna that was fabricated, assembled and tested in Quincy by Harris personnel is very moving.”
The mayor also will present a World Trade Center artifact (shown) to Harris representatives; it will be on loan from the city for public display at the Harris manufacturing facility. The artifacts were housed in a hangar at New York’s John F. Kennedy’s airport, which contains a portion of the items recovered from Ground Zero.
A Harris announcement noted that many of its engineers were involved in installations, service work and trainings at the World Trade Center over the years, and lost friends and colleagues that day.
