Artefacts from the 9/11 museum

A recovered FDNY Squad 252 helmet belonging to deceased FDNY member Kevin M. Prior. Kevin Prior, a firefighter with Brooklyn's Squad 252, can be seen in video footage of the North Tower lobby recorded after the first plane hit getting ready to go upstairs. Responding to a mayday call sent out by fellow firefighters encountering breathing problems, he and five other members of the squad are thought to have been on a floor in the 20s when the tower collapsed.

Prior's body was found three weeks after the attacks and buried on Long Island, but his mother was troubled that his helmet had not been returned to the family, and said as much in a television interview. An employee at the city's Office of the Chief Medical Examiner happened to catch the broadcast, recognized Prior's squad and badge numbers, and hand-delivered the badly damaged helmet to his grateful family. Audio by Jan Ramirez, 9/11 Memorial and Museum Chief Curator 22 AUG 2011.

A "Little Red" doll discovered by Brian Van Flandern on September 12, 2001. Brian Van Flandern awoke in Queens on the morning of 9/11 to the news of a plane hitting the North Tower, and was determined to volunteer despite his emergency medical technician license having recently expired.

After repeated failed attempts to enroll at several impromptu volunteer coordination that had sprung up around the city that day, he decided to head to the World Trade Center site and managed to get past a checkpoint to join other volunteers on what became known as "the pile". He spent 24 hours helping search for trapped and wounded survivors. Morale quickly flagged: he recalls only one successful rescue, in which a man was freed from a piece of steel piercing his ankle.

Before leaving the site, he found a rag-doll in the rubble. At first, it seemed to be evidence of a child caught up in the attacks. He later learned it was one of several mascot dolls that sat together on the shelf in the offices of the Chances for Children charity on the 101st floor of the North Tower, other examples of which were found scattered far and wide across Lower Manhattan. Audio by Jan Ramirez, 9/11 Memorial and Museum Chief Curator 22 AUG 2011.

A red wallet belonging to victim Gennie Gambale, recovered from the rooftop of the Marriott Hotel at the World Trade Center. Gennie Gambale was a vice president at Cantor Fitzgerald and working on the 103rd floor of the North Tower when the first plane crashed into the lower floors, trapping those above. Her family put up thousands of posters around town in the hopes that she might be found alive, but it was in vain; she was 27 when she was killed.

A police officer, who happened to be the mother of one of Gambale's friends, found Gambale's wallet on the roof of the nearby Marriott hotel and immediately recognized the name on the damaged cards inside, and ensured it was quickly handed over to the family. Audio by Jan Ramirez, 9/11 Memorial and Museum Chief Curator 22 AUG 2011.

An ironworker construction helmet belonging to Larry Keating. Keating was an ironworker foreman who helped oversee the removal of wreckage from the World Trade Center site during the nine-month clean-up operation following the attack. He was chosen by the ironworkers union, Local 40, to represent his colleagues at the ceremonial removing of what became known as Last Column - an upright piece of the towers that had become covered in mementos and from which flew an American flag. He wore his hardhat throughout the clean-up, and continued to wear it proudly for site visits until his death in 2011 from a heart attack. Audio by Jan Ramirez, 9/11 Memorial and Museum Chief Curator 22 AUG 2011.

Shoes worn by survivor Roger Hawke during his evacuation from the 59th floor of the North Tower. Roger Hawke worked at Sidley Austin, a law firm which had offices on the 57th through 59th floors of the North Tower. This was not the first attack on the World Trade Center he had lived through: he was there, too, in 1993 when bombs exploded at the complex.

Soon after the first plane crashed somewhere above him on 9/11, he made his way to one of the increasingly crowded and hot stairways. It took about 90 minutes to descend to safety. He headed on foot to the apartment of his daughter and son-in-law on the Upper East Side, arriving there caked in ash, leaving his dust-choked shoes at the door before entering. His four-year-old granddaughter jumped into his arms but then recoiled at the smell of smoke permeating his clothes: "Papi is on fire from the inside," she said. Audio by Jan Ramirez, 9/11 Memorial and Museum Chief Curator 22 AUG 2011.