Drake and I have been to so many places in Manhattan and Brooklyn it's getting hard to find 'new stuff' to visit. Part of the problem is I can't seem to come to NYC and not go to the Met and the MOMA. Those two museums can suck up days just on their own. Coming here this time, Drake's one request was to visit the 9/11 Memorial and Museum. I was so reluctant to visit this place and have consciously avoided it.
When we went to Hawaii, we visited the Pearl Harbor Memorial, and it was very moving. However, I knew visiting the site of the World Trade Center was not going to be the same for me as Pearl Harbor. I've only heard about the shock of the 1941 attack since I wasn't alive then. However, September 11, 2001 is etched into my memory.
Americans today are still fighting the war that started that September day. In this conflict the citizens who gave 'the final full measure' were just regular people, all colors, all creeds, all ages who were just going about their normal lives. Not a single person suspected when they awoke that morning they would be called upon to sacrifice their lives and by doing so change the lives of all their loved ones forever.
There were hundreds of people visiting the Memorial and the Museum. Outside in the plaza it was a typical American scene with all kinds of people taking pictures, talking, eating, chasing down children, wandering around trying to find where to buy tickets, what line to stand in. Good natured milling around.
The actual Memorial is composed of two large pools which are difficult to describe. The names of the dead surround the pools. One pool is for the South Tower and the other is for the North Tower. Seeing the names, so many names, was just chilling.
We headed into the Museum. Initially, there are photographs of the twin towers showing the total normality and the beauty of that September morning.
Then, as you descend down into the museum, the first thing you see is a lone steel girder covered in memorial graffiti and these strange steel squares set into the floor. Slowly, you begin to realize the 'squares' are the remains of the steel girders set down into the bedrock that underlies Manhattan. This bedrock is what makes the super sky scrapers possible. At this point, it dawned on me this wasn't a museum, but a multi-media memorial to all the people who died that day and all the people who excavated the remains of both the buildings and the people.
From this point forward, there were areas in which there was no photography allowed. For example, there's a huge room filled with 10x13 inch pictures on each wall from the ceiling down to waist height. The pictures of the dead. There are tables set up around the room The tops are a large interactive, touch screen. You can touch a 'face' on the table top, and there are more pictures of that person as well as a video from a significant other in his/her life telling us about their loved one. We stood there for 15 minutes simply touching faces and looking at a small presentation of each person's life. It was chilling to realize we could have stood there for hours on end.
The second thing which is overpowering is the 'memory' wall. The same people from above in the Memorial Plaza are now wandering around and looking. But the entire mood is different. No one is talking. I mean no one. Even young children are quiet. There is almost total silence. And it's a sad and contemplative silence in front of this wall. And it doesn't stop after a few seconds or minutes. It's all pervasive throughout this place. These are sheets of paper covering a gigantic wall. They are artist's representation of the sky on the morning of September 11th, and they also symbolize each of the dead and their diversity. Superimposed over the sheets is a simple quote from Virgil: "No day shall erase you from the memory of time." The quote is a reassurance for the families and other loved ones of those who died.
There are many other reminders of who died that day.
Another part of the museum is a recreation of the awful event itself. I can only equate it to a house of horror. There is film, voice overs and pictures, including the hideous pictures of the planes hitting the towers. The presentation is chaotic and recreates the confusion of not knowing what was happening that day with news reporting clips, together with reactions of people watching it happen. and both still and moving pictures as you move through this presentation. The same feelings of horror and disbelief I experienced that day were running through me. Every few steps there would be something more difficult to relive. It's all happening all around you with overlapping voices and pictures. Frankly, it was terribly realistic at recreating the horror and chaos of not knowing what was happening and why. This area of the memorial was much, much worse than I feared. I knew going into this place it was going to be hard, but it was so much worse than I thought it would be. Apparently, I wasn't the only person who found this presentation too overwhelming. There was suddenly a door marked, 'early exit from this exhibition', and we took it.
One of the best parts of this memorial is the outpouring from people around the country who empathized with the families, and who wanted to honor the dead. Here's my favorite: A quilt made by four women in Pennsylvania. The squares contain names of the dead and also honors the 'first responders'.
I found myself reliving my personal September 11th as a result of visiting the 9/11 Memorial. It was my great fortune to have my school principal ban all news and TV's in our school building. He announced what happened over the intercom, and he asked for calm. He then had all the TV's around the school taken to the library. As he rightly guessed, we would see the horrible pictures and films over and over again, and there really wasn't any point in having children watch the chaos firsthand at school. I wish my daughter's high school principal had been so astute. When my school day ended, I made a beeline to LD Bell High School in Hurst to gather her up. This was not normal. I never picked her up at school, but I needed to see her and check on her. Lots of parents in America did exactly that on terrible day.
I knew this day would hit her very, very hard. As I pulled up to the curb, her face was the color of a sheet of typing paper. Just two months previously, she had stood at the 'Top of the World' observation deck on one of the towers, and had taken pictures of herself in front of the globe in the courtyard between the two towers. We were both haunted at how close she had come to death.
Knowing it could have been her as part of the innocent tourist group who perished on September 11th, made me grieve all the more for the other families who weren't as lucky as mine. This memorial brought it all back.
You'll find additional pictures at:
