A piece of the World Trade Center that gave September 11th terrorist attack evacuees an escape route was moved Sunday to make way for construction work.

Some survivors were on hand to watch as the so-called "Survivor's Staircase" was transported several hundred feet to a temporary storage location on the edge of the site.

The 37-step staircase is the last remaining above-ground piece of the WTC, and used to connect the plaza outside the Twin Towers to the street below.

"I was buried under the South Tower when it came down, I was in the concourse level," recalled 9/11 survivor Tom Canavan. "I tunneled up into the plaza level and the only way off the plaza at that point was the staircase on Vesey Street, because I couldn't get to Church Street; everything had collapsed from the South Tower falling into it."

"It's an important day because this artifact is such a big part of what happened on that day, which is the story of survival," said Joe Daniels, president of the September 11th Memorial Museum. "People who left the tower and escaped, this whole city, this whole country, what we went through, the story of survival is such an important one."

It took nearly three months of preparation to move the 65-ton structure, which was transported by a 500-ton crane.

Initial plans to destroy the staircase drew criticism, but state officials eventually agreed to separate the stairs from their concrete base. Current plans call for the staircase to be brought back to the site this summer as part of a memorial.

"The stairwell will be placed inside the memorial museum as the final area of descent when visitors go down to bedrock," said Daniels.

Canavan says he's glad to know the staircase he used on 9/11 will serve as such an important part of the memorial museum.

"If I can come here and just see people going in, looking at that, that's important," he said. "I'm sure [it saved my life.]"