Wednesday August 2 – New York City

We had an extra day in New York. We breakfasted early to say goodbye to members of the group and to Gary. It’s a bummer – Lesley has a cold and her nose is streaming! Time to visit a chemist and get some cold tablets.

After getting some cold tablets (and Lesley taking two immediately) we caught a hop-on (our tickets were for 48 hours) downtown to the 9/11 memorials and museum. This is an amazing place now. There are two identical square pits, the exact size and site of the towers, with water cascading down the sides and across the bottom into a much smaller square pit where you can’t see the bottom from where you stand. Names of the victims of each respective tower are inscribed around the edge. There were lots of people there, but not much noise. It was a respectful hush, really.

(internet - aerial view of the site)

We then queued to go into the museum. You enter and immediately descend via stairs into the ground. The museum has been built around and under the water pits, and into the basements of the original towers. There are on display twisted metal beams and the outside cladding of the buildings, and as you descend even further, galleries open up showing squashed and twisted emergency vehicles, parts of the aerial that was on one of the towers, and various belongings of emergency personnel involved. We ended up at the base of the towers and could walk around the entire base of the north tower, with the metal beams cut off at ground level to show where they once stood. We could see part of the south tower base. We could see an entire slurry wall – created in the original construction to help waterproof the building from the Hudson River. We learned that had the building not come straight down on top of itself, but fell even a little sideways, the wall keeping out the river would have breached, and the whole area would have flooded! Imagine it! As if it wasn’t horrific enough.

we believe the grey wall is part of one of the water memorials above the museum (and the wall in the photo above as well)  

the Last Column (to  be removed from the site) It is symbolic of all that went on and is revered.

Two photos joined together to show one of the outside structural panels

Huge art installation - No Day Shall Erase Your Memory In Time. The blue squares represent the question 'what colour was the sky that day?'

Survivors Stairs - the actual stairs that many survivors came down. It was under an overhang and they were protected.

part of the base of one of the towers

art installation - flag made of the images of most of the victims

sign saying that the remains of many who perished at the site are reposed behind that wall.

part of  the aerial on top of one of the towers

one of the columns, as it was cut off

fire engine

(internet - gallery of the victims)

(internet - metal beam fold)

(internet - stairs descending into the depths, alongside huge metal structural beams)

(internet - the fire engine)

There were galleries where no photography was allowed. One was about the victims, their photos, and voices reading out the names and the relationship to the person reading out the name. The other main gallery was the telling of the story from start to finish. It was what we had seen on TV, so we didn’t see a lot that was new to us (except the personal stories of victims and emergency personnel, some of whom became victims themselves), but hit home just how quickly it all unfolded. Within two hours both towers were hit and down. Just amazing that such a thing could happen. No photos were allowed here. Again, lots of people in there but almost no noise. It felt wrong to make a noise.

It was very moving, and little columns with tissues were discreetly placed around. Lesley was constantly blowing her nose and had to use some of these tissues as her own ran out (she was also sneezing into her tissues quite a bit). People must have thought she was affected by what she saw. Hmm, true to some extent, but not drawn to tears and giving a runny nose. It was her cold. The tablets are taking a while to kick in!

After about a good two hours in the museum we left, and went for some lunch in the Oculus (an incredible structure which houses a rail transit hub and a Westfield shopping centre right next to the World Trade Centre). It houses the World Trade Centre railway station, re-built at a cost of $3.74 billion US. It is designed to resemble a bird being released from a child’s hand. It looks amazing here and just seems to fit the reverence of the 9/11 site as a whole.

(internet)

(internet)

(internet)

We caught the hop-on bus again to complete the downtown circuit before our 48 hours expired. We were planning on visiting the Rockefeller Centre to take photos from the observation deck, but Lesley was feeling washed out so we went back to the hotel, then an early dinner. Packed ready to leave early tomorrow morning. [Images all from internet.]