Tower remnants saved for memorial

NEW YORK - The last standing piece of the World Trade Center towers - a seven-storey twisted metal ruin that has come to symbolise the terrorist attacks - was torn down yesterday and saved for possible use in a memorial.

"We're going to preserve as much of that wall as possible," said Mayor Rudolph Giuliani before workers attached cables to the structure and began bringing it to the ground.

"We may be doing a memorial with some or part of that wall."

The remnants of the south tower - the one struck by the second jetliner and the first to collapse - have been captured in scores of photos of ground zero since the September 11 attack on the twin 110-storey towers.

Amanda Gallaghre, a Manhattan tour guide, was one of several people watching near the site as the last chunk of the building came down. She was supposed to lead a tour of the World Trade Center on the afternoon of the attack.

The metal wall "should be part of a memorial, so it can stand as a lasting memory to all the people who died there," she said.

Mayor Giuliani said removal of the tower would also make cleanup efforts safer and easier.

Earlier, as New Yorkers voted in primaries for his replacement, the mayor encouraged residents to get on with life.

"Life is risky," he said. "You can decide to live your life afraid of that happening, or you can decide to live your life the way Americans live their lives, which is unafraid. There's no reason to have this increased fear."

Mayor Giuliani's comments came as workers started a third week of digging through the ruins of the twin towers and as the families of the more than 6600 victims began receiving help in paying their bills.

The mayor said statistics showed that violent crime had plunged in the two weeks since the terrorist attack. New York was now the safest large city in America, he said.

The number of confirmed dead at the World Trade Center rose yesterday to 287 as the number of missing dropped to 6347.

- REUTERS

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