Jason Peot, Professor of Art and Design at Harper College, was commissioned to create his piece, Vestige, for the City of Elmhurst, using a broken steel rail from the wreckage of 9/11 in August 2024. 

Peot is an artist who makes his art mostly out of materials such as wood, fiberglass, metal, and more. He says that he attributes his choice of material to his dad, who was a contractor.

“I was around construction stuff all the time, so construction materials were just really natural to me and they were things I found really interesting.”

The 13-foot sculpture, Vestige, is a tribute to the City of Elmhurst at the Elmhurst Fire Department and had a warped rail from the subway line underneath the Twin Towers. The sculpture features this rail in between two white building blocks, signifying the Twin Towers holding it up. 

Peot talks about how important this piece is to him and its use during 9/11.

“I found out during the process that the subway line was used to help people evacuate in the short time before the building came down, so that piece kind of like saved people too which is kinda crazy,” Peot said. “The fact that it’s twisted and realizing how strong that metal is just kinda gives you a sense of how heavy and catastrophic [9/11] really was- that it twisted something that strong.”

When 9/11 occurred, it had taken the volunteers and the New York Police Department years to clean everything up and put the city back together, the best they could. 

Peot gives the context on getting the piece and why he decided to name the sculpture “Vestige”.

“They had these warehouses full of just scraps of metal that had been moved off the site and all of those pieces that were no longer evidence when everything was done because it was no longer a crime scene,” Peot notes. “They had something like 3000 chunks of metal that were then given to towns and fire departments all over the country as a little relic or memorial which is what the word ‘Vestige’ means.”

The City of Elmhurst applied to get a piece of the wreckage, but they had no idea what they were getting until they were told that they could come pick it up. 

Elmhurst had received railroad steel, which was close to 600 pounds and 13 feet long. It was extremely hard to work with and took many years to figure out how to incorporate it into the city.

Living in Elmhurst, people let the fire department know about Peots’ skills.

“I live in Elmhurst and so people had mentioned to the Fire Department, the Fire Chief, the Mayor’s Office, that I was there and that I was an experienced artist that could possibly handle this, and so they reached out to me,” Peot said.

The Vestige was installed in August of 2024, and there was a ceremony for it on September 11, 2024. 

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