Masonry Magazine August 2002 Page. 24
Pentagon The Phoenix Story
SERIES
Immediately after the firefighters had the building under control, the PenRen program manager, Lee Evey, started to plan the rebuilding of the Pentagon.
With smoke still coming from the damaged section, someone suggested the new program be called The Phoenix Project, from the greek myth about the bird rising from the ashes. The name stuck. With a handshake commitment from everyone, the plan was agreed upon: E-ring at the point of impact would be ready for business as usual by September 11, 2002-one year to the day, 61 years from the groundbreaking of the original building in 1941.
Two names come up repeatedly when discussing the speed of the response to the attack: Lee Evey and Allyn Kilsheimer. According to Fromboluti, "Lee Evey is a 'can-do' guy. He was the project leader on PenRen and when the crash occurred, he knew that a special team was needed to get the building cleared, the damaged section demolished, and the reconstruction done as quickly as possible. He's the one that's kept all the government contractors in line, in a supportive role as opposed to an adversarial one."
Evey called on Allyn Kilsheimer, a structural engineer and an expert in rebuilding structures that had been blown apart. He was on the site on September 11.
Fromboluti remembers, "Evey asked, "Who do you want to work on this project?" Kilsheimer submitted a list of those he thought could do the job. The Pentagon said okay and picked the team in a day."
"Kilsheimer comes to work at 1:30 every morning, If things aren't going right he yells and screams," Fromboluti says with a smile. "If people don't listen to him he goes to Evey and explains it and Evey says, "Do it!"" Kilsheimer was on site late the morning of September 11 and worked through the night and into the next day and next night, doing the initial stabilization of the structure."
For weeks after the attack, Masonry Arts had workers on the site, helping with the cleanup and assisting forensic agents from the FBI to sift the debris. People like Isaac Peterson, a stonemason, and ironworkers Vignevic and Windsor labored at whatever work was necessary. Bartram was building his team even as Evey and Kilsheimer built theirs. Masons and ironworkers came from Alabama, Maryland and Virginia to help.
"There was a memorial held on October 11 for the people who were killed," Bartram notes. "On October 12, we started taking the stone off the building. We took down approximately 2,400 pieces of stone, a lot of which had melted aluminum from the plane embedded in it. We took it all down in about 13 days.
"While we were taking it down, they had already started the demolition on the building, tearing the rest of the structure down in the Phoenix area. After we had all the stone down, Mary Oehrlein, who calls the shots on how to clean and fix historic government buildings, gave us directions on cleaning the stone. We trucked all the stone over to the North parking lot where we separated and cleaned it according to her requirements." Oehrlein, of Mary Oehrlein Associates, Washington, DC, has also worked on the restoration of the Washington Monument.
KCE went through the impact area, they came to the conclusion that the damage was severe enough to warrant remov
The Phoenix Story SERIES
Immediately after the firefighters had the building under control, the PenRen program manager, Lee Evey, started to plan the rebuilding of the Pentagon.
and help for years, the project had been his daily life. "I couldn't get a flight out but I had my truck with me so I drove 20 hours straight and got there about midnight Friday night/Saturday morning. About 1:30 in the morning I got together with the renovation team. That's when they asked if we could do the façade, put the stone back, and I told them, "Yes, of course."
"That's how we got the contract," he adds. "Our executive vice president, Ken Hayes, flew in a couple days later and locked up the deal. We actually purchased the blocks out of the quarry and had drawings made of the stone and fabrication before we had a signature on a contract."
The Masonry Arts crew poses with the first blast window installed in The Phoenix Project area. From the left: James Coats, Michael Moore, Rich Bartram, Ric Vignevic, and Joe Windsor.
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