Post photog reunited with long-lost personal piece of 9/11 history

An ace New York Post photographer was reunited Tuesday with a long-lost personal piece of 9/11 history that he thought he’d never see again — and he owes it all to an eagle-eyed stranger and a Reddit thread.

Post veteran William Lopez had been given a plaque years ago featuring a slice of steel from the World Trade Center replicating the Twins Towers and an extraordinarily touching photo he captured on New York City’s darkest day.

Lopez then lost the plaque, one of his most treasured keepsakes, in the shuffle of a chaotic housing move about a decade ago.

“I thought I’d never see it again, and I accepted it,” Lopez said. “I didn’t realize how much I missed it until I got it back. I was so overwhelmed with emotion.”

His photo — a copy of which is in the Library of Congress — shows two FDNY firefighters embracing after realizing they both survived the terror attack and rescue effort. The snap was taken just as the sun was setting on that awful September day.

Lopez was at Ground Zero throughout the day, witnessing the horror of the buildings collapsing and office workers jumping to their deaths. The 57-year-old still doesn’t like to talk about the experience.

Lopez, who was a freelance photographer at the time, submitted his image of the two hugging Bravest as one of about 20 photos for a gallery organized by Bolivar Arellano, a now-retired Post photo staffer, to help raise money for first responders in the aftermath.

The exhibit featured a series of harrowing images from numerous Big Apple photographers from the day and its aftermath.

Lopez was later given the plaque featuring his photo as a token of appreciation for helping raise funds.

About six or seven years after Lopez lost his treasured piece of history, Brooklyn resident Sheena Pisarro then spotted the plaque among trash bags in East Williamsburg’s industrial district and scooped it up.

“I knew it was a piece of importance, and in my gut I knew it didn’t belong there,” she said.  

But she said she never noticed until last week when she was painting her home that the plaque had a label on the back, “Bolivar Arellano Gallery” — and she then made it her mission to find its owner.

She posted a photo of the plaque to Reddit, and one of Arellano’s sons responded.

Lopez got a text from a number he didn’t recognize over the weekend but knew it wasn’t spam when he saw a photo of the long-lost plaque included in it.

On Tuesday, Lopez got the plaque back from Pisarro in an emotional reunion.

“I was just floored,” he said.

“I could not believe someone found it, that it still existed and that there was a chance I was going to get it back,” Lopez said.