Part of landing gear from 9/11 plane is found wedged between two Manhattan buildings - 11 years after the terror attacks on New York

• Police say the 5-foot piece of landing gear from one of the planes was found Wednesday lodged in a tiny alley just blocks from Ground Zero
• Area is being treated like a crime scene and Commissioner Ray Kelly told reporters the gear had a rope wrapped around it and may could have been lowered into the 18-inch gap
  
• Medical Examiner will determine whether or not they search for human remains in the alley between the two lower Manhattan buildings
  

By Meghan Keneally, Joshua Gardner and Snejana Farberov

PUBLISHED: 16:05 EST, 26 April 2013 | UPDATED: 20:41 EST, 26 April 2013

Police have found a sizable piece of one of the engines from a plane that crashed into the World Trade Center, more than 11 years after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

The piece of landing gear was found wedged between two buildings just blocks from Ground Zero- in between the buildings at 51 Park Place and 50 Murray Street in downtown Manhattan.

The location is particularly noteworthy because 51 Park Place is the site of the Islamic Cultural Center that stirred up controversy and months of protests two years ago when the site developers wanted to turn it into a mosque.

Found: part of a landing gear from one of the 9/11 planes was discovered wedged between buildings with a mysterious rope around it

Close: The debris was found lodged in a tiny alley at 51 Park, mere blocks from Ground Zero

Piece of '9/11 plane' found in Manhattan

Just before 7pm Friday, New York City Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly arrived on the scene and was escorted inside the rundown building, where he put on a  crime scene suit and was led to the site of the unexpected discovery.

In a press conference that took place across the street about 30 minutes later, Kelly told reporters that Wednesday surveyors were working in the narrow space when they came across an unidentified mechanical part.

Police received a report about the discovery, but officers who responded were not sure what the large piece of metal was resting in a very confined space littered with debris. Kelly then showed reporters a hand-drawn diagram of the scene made on a small piece of paper.

A short time later, the FBI, the National Transportation Safety Board and the Medical Examiner’s Office were notified. Pilots who were consulted ruled that the large piece of steel measuring 5 feet by 4 feet by 17 inches at one time was part of a plane’s landing gear.

Mystery: Commissioner Kelly (pictured) told reporters a rope was wrapped around the gear and that aspect of the find would be investigated

Some answers: Officials held a press conference in front of the buildings (pictured) where the gear was found

Kelly said that mechanical part was wedged in narrow space measuring about 18 inches, and according to Kelly, a rope could be seen intertwined with the steel.

Police officers cordoned off the section of Park Place surrounding the site of the discovery located inside a former Burlington Coat Factory department store, which was controversially turned into an Islamic center and mosque just blocks away from the World Trade Center site.

NYPD deputy commissioner Paul Browne told CBS radio Friday afternoon, 'No, it has not been known that its been there,' Browne said, denying that the building owners were aware that their back alley contained a piece of evidence from the 2001 terrorist attack.

'It was just only recently observed because it's wedged between a very narrow space between the rears of two buildings that almost touch.'

Kelly said that the investigation will look at the possibility that the part had been somehow lowered down into the narrow space. The gear has a serial number visible next to the word ‘Boeing.’

It is unclear which of the two planes the new-found part belonged to, as both were Boeing aircrafts.

Kelly said that on Monday, the medical examiner will investigate to determine if there are any human remains at the site, and it will then be determined how to move the plane remnants.   

Intact: The gear found mere blocks from Ground Zero, bears a clear Boeing ID mark

‘It’s a manifestation of a horrific terrorist act,’ Kelly said, adding that this latest discovery may bring up difficult memories for the families of the victims.

Van Vanable, 63, a construction worker with Benson Industry Local 580, has been working on the yet-to-be completed Freedom Tower just a few blocks away.

On Friday, he was sitting on a bench in his red work helmet just steps away from the mosque building, next door to the Dakota Roadhouse bar, when he says police officers converged on the area.

‘It’s an amazing situation,’ Vanable said of the discovery made nearly 12 years after the 9/11 attacks.

The 63-year-ld construction worker, who lives in Harlem, came to Ground Zero a week after the tragedy and joined the massive cleanup effort hauling away debris. Speaking to MailOnline, Vanable said he is not surprised by the find.

5-feet: The chunk found Wednesday was 5-feet long and police say they've secured the area, pictured, 'like a crime scene'

The inspectors were the ones to call police and since that call, the NYPD has secured the scene as if it were a crime scene in order to document it and catalog evidence.

'We're going to treat this as a crime scene for the next week at least,' Browne said.

'The medical examiner is an important part of the investigation to first see if there's any contamination of the soil that makes it any health safety on the soil below it on the ground. And then they will then make a determination, the office of the medical examiner, as to whether to sift for any possible human remains that might be associated with this find,' Browne said.

5-FOOT BY 3-FOOT CHUNK OF DEBRIS NOT THE FIRST PIECE OF RUBBLE FOUND FROM 9/11 ATTACKS OR EVEN THE LARGEST

Today's discovery of the sizable portion of a plane fuselage is not the first time that evidence from the tragic day were found on the streets of lower Manhattan.

In previous years, large pieces from United Flight 175’s jet engines were found blocks away from where the planes crashed into the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.

Those pieces, along with a 31-foot section of the broadcast antenna from the WTC's North Tower were shown as part of an FBI evidence exhibit that ran at Washington, DC's Newseum through 2012.

A 10,000 pound elevator motor was also taken from the ruins and has become part of another exhibit at the 9/11 Memorial at Ground Zero.

Small artifacts, like countless cell phones and even tinier human remains continue to be uncovered.

About 60 truckloads of debris that could contain tiny fragments of bone or tissue were unearthed by construction crews that have been working on the new World Trade Center in recent years.

Debris: Large chunks of engine from United Flight 175 (left) were found blocks from Ground Zero and a 31-foot piece of the North Tower's broadcast antennae (right) were displayed at Washington DC's Newseum until 2012

Around 9,000 pieces of human remains too degraded for DNA matching have so far been found.

More than 1.6 million tons of materials were moved from Ground Zero to the Fresh Kills landfill on Staten Island, and family members of some victims later sued saying the debris could contain human remains. The lawsuit was dismissed by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2008.

New sifting efforts this month, the first since 2010, have so far uncovered at least 6 potential human remains from debris transported to a park atop the Staten Island landfill.

Some 2,750 people died at the WTC in the 2001 attacks, but only 1,634 people have been identified. Some degree of closure came for dozens of families as 34 new positive identifications of victims have been found since 2006.