According to the Fieldguide to US Public Monuments and Memorials:
This remembrance honors Samuel Oitice, a 25-year Peekskill, New York, veteran firefighter, native and resident. Oitice was also a City of New York firefighter; he was killed in the terrorist attacks on the towers of the World Trade Center, 9/11/2001. The memorial recalls and pays homage also to victims, responders and rescuers as well as those left behind, stunned and grieved, that Tuesday morning after equally vicious attacks in Pennsylvania and Virginia.
The site’s program and design were developed by the memorial’s leadership group in cooperation with The Verdin Company of Cincinnati, Ohio. The memorial’s centerpiece, a bronze statue of a firefighter, behind a stoic gaze and on one knee, before Oitice’s remaindered, fire-fighting gear, was created by artist Andrea Grimsley under an arrangement with Verdin. Combined with the site as well is a steel beam from the WTC, courtesy of the Port Authority of NY and NJ.
The work’s supporters and champions were many, led and coordinated by the Sam Oitice Heroes Remembered Memorial Committee. From idea to unveiling, its members labored nearly ten years to create the monument.
The memorial was dedicated July 24, 2010. The white structure in the background is the monument commemorating the deaths of seven firefighters during the 1918 Fleischmanns factory fire.