As he unboxes the memories, Kristian Taketomo shares one of his own.
It was scary as a 12-year-old kid — and still is, 25 years later — geometry class suddenly interrupted by news of a terrorist attack.
The Ridgewood, New Jersey, native’s father commuted to New York City every day by train. The World Trade Center was his stop.
So there he was on Sept. 11, 2001, just a normal day of traveling to and from work — until it wasn’t.
“He got off the train; he was just resting for a little bit,” Taketomo recalls. “Somebody came down and they were like, ‘We’ve evacuated this building. You’ve got to get out of here.’
“I didn’t realize he was underneath the building, but I knew that was how he commuted into New York,” he continues. “I remember people at my school, their parents came and picked them up. Nobody really knew how their family members were for a while. After that, everyone in my school got a cellphone.”
Taketomo’s dad made it to safety and took the Staten Island Ferry back home that night.
But many others from his hometown weren’t so fortunate; they were among the nearly 3,000 killed in the tragedy.
Many of those lives lost on 9/11 are remembered in the UNLV Special Collections and Archives at the Lied Library, where Taketomo works as the curator for gaming collections.
In the wake of the attacks, an impromptu shrine formed outside of New York-New York on the Las Vegas Strip.
There, on the iron fence in front of the replica of the Statue of Liberty, locals and tourists gathered to hang T-shirts and flags, leave pictures and handwritten memorials and share their thoughts, tears and tributes.
“It started spontaneously, with people just leaving items,” recalls UNLV Ombuds David G. Schwartz, the former director of the university’s Center for Gaming Research. “A lot of firefighter T-shirts from different fire stations.”
Around 3,000 of those T-shirts fill the 491 boxes of memorabilia that make up the New York-New York 9/11 Heroes Tribute Collection, which Schwartz helped compile.
On a recent weekday afternoon, Taketomo shares a small portion of the collection from a room on the library’s third floor.
Across from a table brightened by a homemade sign decorated with red, white and blue handprints — “We Love USA,” it reads, a message that made it here from El Paso, Texas — he unfurls a dragon-covered flag originally from Wales.
“What wowed me was that there are things that came from all over the world,” Taketomo says. “We have materials that are from England. We have some stuff from Australia.
“That really impressed upon me how much of the world was touched by this,” he continues, “how affected people were — everywhere.”
A humbling honor
“His friends in Staten Island called him Christmas Boy.”
That’s how much Scott M. Davidson loved the holiday — he even decorated his car in lights one year — remembered in a typewritten memorial to the late fireman, who died at 33 as a result of 9/11.
Enclosed in a plastic sleeve, it rests amid American flag ribbons and artificial roses symbolic of very real emotions, here in Box 487.
“Last seen: World Trade Center Building Two, 87th floor,” reads a computer-printed missing person sign for Brent James Woodall, an equities trader later confirmed to have died in the attacks.
“Love mom, dad … your new daughter,” the weathered sheet of paper is signed in faded ink.
Woodall never met his child, born six months after his death.
Schwartz began curating artifacts like these in the fall of 2001 after being contacted by MGM Resorts International for help with storing and safekeeping the memorabilia. There was little precedence for a project such as this.
“I did some research to see how things like T-shirts could be preserved,” he says. “It was a lot of work for sure, definitely an emotional experience. You’re kind of humbled by having that responsibility. It’s a real honor.”
Nearly 6,000 items were individually cataloged — the online inventory guide spans 378 pages. Everything can be accessed at the library or the UNLV special collections website.
“If somebody knows that they hung up a T-shirt there — a lot of people actually sent in things, too — and they want to come see it, they can figure out which box it’s in,” Taketomo says. “We’re open to anybody; you don’t need to make an appointment or anything.”
Gone but never forgotten
Taketomo holds up a faded white T-shirt and points to a small circular tear in the fabric.
“You can see the holes here,” he says. “A lot of them have holes in them from being hung on the fence.”
Beginning in 2002, a rotating selection of these T-shirts was displayed in glass cases in front of the Statue of Liberty replica. The cases were removed a decade later as part of New York-New York’s renovations.
In 2011, artist Troy Gillett used 3,000 T-shirts from the collection to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the attacks with a 32-foot, red, white and blue double helix art piece called “Common Threads,” which was installed at the Lied Library entrance for a year.
While these T-shirts make up the majority of the artifacts here, there’s still much more to be seen, including numerous objects with no direct relation to 9/11 — an infant’s foot-shaped rattle; a multicolored bracelet — seemingly spur-of-the-moment expressions of emotion.
“One of the things that’s striking about this collection is that there’s a lot of stuff where people planned to bring the T-shirt, but then there’s other stuff where somebody was walking by and they had something that they wanted to contribute,” Taketomo notes. “Like, you’re walking down the Strip and then you see this and you’re touched by it.”
Two and half decades later, this emotional resonance can still be palpably felt among the items in Box 487, like a hand-penned tribute to two Long Island, New York, firefighters: Kevin M. O’Rourke and Joseph R. Rivelli Jr.
“They gave their lives to save other lives,” it reads in black ink on the face of a manilla folder next to a picture of the latter.
The photo of Rivelli is a little faded, but not the memory of him. Not here.
Contact Jason Bracelin at jbracelin@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0476. Follow @jasonbracelin76 on Instagram.
