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| The pool where the South Tower used to be. |
It is eerily quiet now. There is barely a whisper among the hundreds of people slowly walking the 8-acre site. The mood is somber. Eyes are wet.
Every few moments, you see someone look up into the empty sky, and you know what’s going through their minds; the sound of the planes, the ear-splitting explosions, the roar of the collapsing buildings that occurred on this site a little over ten years ago.
This is the 9/11 Memorial in New York, where the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center stood for a too short 30 years. There are 2,983 names etched in bronze along the perimeter of two mammoth pools that are the foundation of the Memorial, each pool comprising an acre and representing the exact footprint of each of the buildings. The sides of the pools are waterfalls that cascade thirty feet downward, disappearing into deep voids in the pool centers. They are breathtaking.
The 2,983 names honor those killed in the 9/11 attacks in New York, the Pentagon and on Flight 93, as well as the victims of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. The utter tragedy of those events really hits home as you stand on the site and peruse the names. These were people just like you and me who started a normal Tuesday morning, never to return. Some were working in the buildings, some came to help, all will forever be heroes.
As we entered the memorial grounds two weeks ago, to be honest, I was speechless. I had to remind myself to breathe as a wave of emotions cascaded over me. It was an honor and a privilege to stand on the World Trade Center site, no question. And while the pools themselves are gorgeous, beautiful and tranquil in their simplicity, the absence of the Twin Towers is overwhelming, the horror of that September day ten years ago creating a powerful sadness and sense of loss as you stand on the site.
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| The names of the fallen. |
There isn’t much to see, frankly, but what’s there is quite profound. The pools are the center of attention, but we were also awestruck by the “Survivor Tree”, a relatively small pear tree that stands just west of where the South Tower was. The tree endured the terrorist attacks and even Hurricane Irene. To think about what went on around this tree, and the stories it could tell, is mind-boggling.
The Memorial covers eight of the original sixteen acres of the World Trade Center. In addition to the two pools, it includes the structure of the under-construction 9/11 Memorial Museum.
The Museum is being built around and over a number of surviving remnants of the structural columns of the original towers. Visitors will descend past the Vesey Street stair remnant and the historic “Survivors’ Stairs,” where hundreds escaped with their lives. This isn’t your typical sort of building, that’s for sure. It will be a progressive descent into the gaping hole left by the towers, marked by reminders, both gargantuan and intimate, of what happened on the ground you step across.
“The Museum will be about each of us, about what it means to be a human being, and what it means to live in a complex, global community at the start of the 21st century,” said Alice Greenwald, Director of the 9/11 Memorial Museum. “It will, we hope, be a place for understanding ourselves and the world in which we live, a place for promising the kind of world we want to bequeath to our children and grandchildren.”
The Museum is still under construction and is expected to open in September 2012. If you can wait to go until it opens, and you should go, I think it would be worth it.
I’m thrilled they didn’t build something on this space and that they built the new big skyscraper a block away. After all, this is, and always will be, sacred ground. The concept of the pools is brilliant, a lasting reminder of all that was lost.
Though we weren’t rushed, at all, there just wasn’t enough time to soak it all in. I don’t think there will ever be.
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This account is based on a visit to the 9/11 Memorial, Friday November 11, 2011. You can make reservations to visit on the Memorial web site, here. I suggest you do so well in advance. Reservations are booked months ahead.
