A 21-foot, nearly 17,000-pound steel beam from the World Trade Center’s South Tower has been displayed in Cincinnati as part of a travelling memorial ahead of the 25th anniversary of the 11 September attacks. Organised by the Tunnel to Towers Foundation, the “Steel Across America” tour aims to help communities far from New York remember those killed and the emergency workers who responded.

The beam has visited events in 21 states and was welcomed at the Cincinnati Fire Museum by firefighters, veterans, FDNY members and local residents. The foundation ambassador Scott Nokes, a former Marine, spoke at the ceremony; after becoming a double below-knee amputee and legally blind following septic shock, he received an accessible mortgage-free home through the charity in 2019. The tour is due to visit West Point on 1 September, Boston on 3 September and the White House on 8 September, while the charity says it will provide 343 mortgage-free homes this year in honour of the 343 FDNY firefighters who died in the attacks.