New on View: National Tribute Quilt Created in Response to 9/11

A 30-foot long quilt created by four women in response to 9/11 was recently donated to the 9/11 Memorial Museum and is now on view.

The National Tribute Quilt is among the new installations in the museum’s Tribute Walk, an area for large-scale works of art created in the aftermath of 9/11. The 8-foot tall quilt contains nearly 3,500 fabric squares created by people in all 50 states and five countries. Stitched together, the squares depict the New York City skyline with the Twin Towers. The quilt also represents the Pentagon and the four flights hijacked on 9/11.

Nicknamed the Steel Quilters, four Pennsylvania employees of the United States Steel Corporation, Kathy Crawford, Amber Dalley, Jian Li, and Dorothy Simback organized the creation of the quilt. Their project was partly in response to the death of another coworker’s son, Lawrence Don Kim, who was working at the World Trade Center on 9/11.

“The father’s strength and composure inspired us to make this quilt, not for just one family, but for all the families who must share in the grief,” Crawford wrote.

A native of Pittsburgh, 31-year-old Kim was a senior manager of information technology at Marsh & McLennan. He loved watching his hometown Steelers play football, and he taught himself German so he could read the untranslated writings of Freud, Heidegger, and Goethe. On 9/11, Kim was in the North Tower reporting for his second day of work.

Out of the sympathy the Steel Quilters felt for Kim’s parents, and through the compassion of hundreds of quilters, came this tribute to all 9/11’s victims.

By 9/11 Memorial Staff