The National 911 Flag Organization

The National 9/11 Flag flying over Ground Zero.

In the days after the terror attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, an American flag appeared on the side of a construction site overlooking Ground Zero in downtown Manhattan. A construction crew hung the 30-foot flag on 90 West Street as a symbol of hope for volunteers searching for survivors in the wreckage of the World Trade Center.

However, the flag soon had the opposite effect. It kept getting caught on scaffolding broken by the collapse of the South Tower. Seeing an American flag ripped to shreds upset some of the workers below.