September 11 Memorial and Museum
New York City
February 2, 2019
While Traveling Life’s Highways, it gives one the opportunity to see and do things that made history. It could be our families’ history but is usually our Nation’s history and the stories told that make up the fabric of our country.
There are some events in our history that are so significant that you remember where you were or what you were doing at that moment in time. For me, the first was President Kennedy’s assassination in Dallas. The second was Apollo 11’s Neil Armstrong’s first imprint on the moon’s surface and the last are the attacks on our nation’s soil on September 11, 2001.
I just returned from a quick trip to New York City to attend the wedding of my neighbor’s youngest daughter. The time spent was a wonderful 72 hour whirlwind of social gatherings in preparation of the wedding, the reception party and farewell breakfast of their family and friends. I also got to have dinner and drinks with longtime friends, Colin and Lisa after arriving the first night.
Besides attending the wedding the only thing I wanted to see was the 9/11 Memorial at Ground Zero of the World Trade Center. This February morning was much like September 11, 2001 with its clear blue skies, the sun shining off the new Freedom Tower next to Ground Zero, but the crispness in the air from the 20 degree temperature with the wind blowing through the canyons of skyscrapers made one tighten ones coat and put exposed hands in pockets to combat the cold.
Standing at the 9/11 Memorial was, for me, incredibly moving. Like many, I recall watching the horror of that day unfold on TV and, of course, being fascinated by documentary after documentary made after that. But it wasn't until I stood at Ground Zero, shivering in the wind, looking up at the empty sky on this massive site where the two towers once stood then looking into the deep and somewhat dark abyss of the pools of cascading water that were the towers foundations, and also looking up at the new One World Trade Centre - the Freedom Tower - that I could fully grasp and comprehend what the citizens of New York went through that day. What incredible horror and impending doom was felt by those in the buildings who survived the initial impacts and the first responders who went to rescue them? It brought tears to my eyes.
One World Trade Centre – Freedom Tower
Time heals all, they say, and it seems that some forget the sacred ground they are on while at Ground Zero. The literature for the 9/11 Memorial states that it is a place for "remembrance and quiet reflection", yet there were the laughing Asian ladies taking one photo after another of themselves. I was astonished at how many people were not respecting, or were oblivious to this, at how many people seemed to be there just because it was another one of the many tourist sites in New York to knock off their list, or on their bus tour ... to have their photos taken with the Memorial and the new tower as a backdrop, smiling and laughing all the while. I just didn't get that.
Fortunately, I think those people were in the minority. When I saw an elderly lady rubbing the name of someone she knew, possibly a lost family member, an NYPD fireman in his dress blues standing with friends and family in front of one of the panels honoring his fallen comrades it drove home the impact of this memorial. A mother with her young daughter (who would not have even been born when the attacks happened) standing silently, almost as if in prayer, at one corner of the north pool, my faith in those who came to see the memorial to properly honor the fallen, was restored. The 2,983 names of the men, women, and children killed in the attacks of September 11, 2001 and February 26, 1993, inscribed into bronze parapets surrounding the twin Memorial pools, located in the footprints of the Twin Towers. It is a fitting tribute to their memory.
One of Two Pools with Victims Names
THE MEMORIAL
Located where the Twin Towers once stood, there are now two large grey chasms in the ground from which water cascades down all four sides before gathering in a pool and finally plunging into a dark void in the middle, seemingly descending to the center of the Earth.
On the brass rims around these twin pools you'll find stencil-cut names of every person who died in the terrorist attacks of February 26, 1993 and September 11, 2001. At nighttime, lights shine up through each letter illuminating the names.
These two pools make up the 9/11 Memorial, which is free of charge and open to the public daily from 7:30 am to 9 pm.
THE MUSEUM
National September 11 Memorial Museum at the World Trade Center
Instead of focusing on complicated and controversial topics like terrorism or the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq (although these are also covered to a lesser extent), the museum offers a touching but honest look at human nature during and post-9/11, with artifacts, personal stories and information from people who were involved both directly and indirectly.
THE EXHIBITS
The museum is thoughtfully divided into several exhibits, with the main two being the Historical Exhibition and the Memorial Exhibition.
Located within the original perimeters of the North Tower, the Historical Exhibition is filled with artifacts, photographs, first-person accounts, and archival audio and video recordings. This exhibit is made up of three sequential parts: the Events of the Day, before 9/11, and after 9/11.
The Memorial Exhibition is situated within the original footprint of the South Tower, and contains portrait photographs of the almost 3000 people who lost their lives in result of the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 and the bombing of the World Trade Center on February 26, 1993. In this exhibit, there are touch-screen devices where visitors can learn more about the lives of some of these individuals.
Another exhibit, which is titled 'Witness at Ground Zero', contains images by a French photographer and video director who spent several days volunteering with rescue crews. The dramatic images were taken amidst the rubble of Ground Zero. (https://www.911memorial.org/)
Waiting to enter, I noticed the reflection of the American Flag with the Freedom Tower in the background in the windows of the Memorial.
Reflection of Flag in National September 11 Memorial Museum
The entrance to the museum is at street level but once inside, the first thing I noticed is that you are descending down into the belly of this enormous space. There is a stunning view through large glass windows of the newly risen Freedom Tower. The combined space of the museum covers approximately 110,000 square feet. A set of eroded concrete stairs, down which many of the survivors fled to safety, is placed alongside the staircase and escalator down which you must walk. At the bedrock level, there are also some powerfully understated exhibits, such as exposing the column foundations that march in a mute line around the perimeter where the towers once stood, marking the threshold between the cavernous lobby area and the sanctified space of the exhibition within.
The first thing you notice is the towering twin steel beams. The remnant steel beams became known as tridents because they are crowned with three prongs and were once part of the facade of the World Trade Center's south tower. Salvaged from ground zero after the 9/11 attacks, the tridents greet visitors as they enter the pavilion of the 9/11 Memorial Museum.
Trident Steel Beams
Just past the Tridents are two large photographs of the New York City skyline. The first one was taken about 8:30 am just before American Airlines Flight 11 impacted the north tower at 8:46 am.
New York Skyline 8:30 am September 11, 2001
The second photo depicts the smoke and skyline after the World Trade Center’s Twin Towers have collapsed.
Skyline after towers have collapsed
With each turn, the walkway lowers you deeper and deeper into the space where the twin towers once stood. It has a sobering effect with the different displays housed in vast underground halls. Then light yields to darkness and another juxtaposition: snatches of voices are heard in a burbling din of horror and confusion. The words . . . expressions of shock, anguish, dismay . . . are projected on vertical panels in multiple languages. Another set of panels show photographs of faces silently wracked by the same emotions. This tightly controlled passageway leads to a stunning view of an enormous open space, dubbed the “Foundation Hall,” with the original 64 foot tall concrete slurry wall still in place holding back the Hudson River.
Slurry Wall holding back the Hudson River
Looking down into Foundation Hall, you see “The Last Beam.” As rescue workers continued the task of clearing the World Trade Center site, the last steel beam to be removed became a symbol of hope for visitors and volunteers alike. Starting with just a few names, the beam evolved into an immediate, living memorial. This exhibit creates a visual repository of those individual memorials, allowing visitors to explore stories up and down the column. As you turn the corner to descend deeper into the Memorial there are more contrasts. Noise and silence; darkness and light; surface and depth; death and resurrection; a fortress-like wall holding back elemental torrents of grief . . . these are all emotional triggers, fundamental polarities of experience, deeply soaked in allegorical, spiritual and, to me especially, Christian meaning.
Lining wide ramps that bring you even deeper into the pit are stark reminders of the attack, a dedication marker placed when the building was constructed,
Dedication Marker
and images of the homemade flyers placed by people who lost loved ones, a much-degraded concrete staircase that was used by survivors to flee through the Vesey Street exit. The careful, almost minimalist placement of these objects mimics the display of sculpture in a contemporary art museum, but also the Stations of the Cross in a Catholic church.
Just to drive the point home, as you reach the lowest level of the atrium, initially on a bare concrete wall that separates visitors from a repository holding the unidentified remains of victims of the September 11 attacks, is a quote of Virgil’s: “No day shall erase you from the memory of time.” From end to end, the sentence stretches 60 feet. Each of the 15-inch letters is made of steel appropriated from the wreckage. Read against the backdrop of the cool, gray, towering concrete wall, the sentiment is one of solemnity, remembrance; at first glance, Virgil’s words seem a fitting commemorative for the lives lost that day.
2,983 watercolor squares, each with its own shade of blue, were added to this wall – one for each of the 2001 and 1993 attack victims – and the artwork as a whole revolves around the idea of memory. Our own perception of the color blue might not be the same as that of another person. But, just like our perception of color, our memories share a common point of reference.
Virgil Quote - “No day shall erase you from the memory of time.”
Inside this immense expanse, you'll find various artifacts on display such as pieces from the planes that struck the Twin Towers, one of many fire trucks which assisted in rescue efforts,
Crushed front end of Ladder 3
Side view of Ladder 3 with damaged fireman's helmet on display
a three-story metal beam covered with missing posters, photographs, a piece of the radio and television antenna from the top of the North Tower
Remnant of Radio and Television antenna from the North Tower
and messages of resilience named the 'Last Column' (which has become something of the museum's centerpiece), as well as a 64 foot tall retaining wall that survived the destruction of the original World Trade Center.
The Last Column and 64 foot tall Slurry Retaining Wall
Then there are the smaller but just as significant artifacts like damaged fireman's helmets, World Trade Center ID's, faded subway cards, police uniforms, and dust-covered shoes. One that I found interesting was a note written by Randolph Scott found on the street by a woman fleeing the World Trade Center two blocks east of the complex which read, “84th Floor - West of Fire – 12 People trapped.”
84th Floor Note – 12 People Trapped
There were rooms filled with artifacts from the two buildings implosions, the Pentagon and a heart breaking account of United Airlines Flight 93 crashing in a Pennsylvania field. It gave voice recordings of the phone calls by the victims, the Air Traffic Control tapes, and email messages of goodbye from several of the passengers before they stormed the cockpit, attacking the hijackers who crashed the plane before it could hit the White House in Washington, DC.
THE CROSS at GROUND ZERO
The shape was oddly identifiable in the blasted wreckage of the World Trade Center, standing upright amid beams bent like fork tines and jagged, pagan-seeming tridents. A grief-exhausted excavator named Frank Silecchia found it on Sept. 13, 2001, two days after the terrorist attacks. A few days later, he spoke to a Franciscan priest named Father Brian Jordan, who was blessing remains at Ground Zero. “Father, you want to see God’s House?” he asked. “Look over there.”
Father Brian peered through the fields of shredded metal. “What am I looking for?” he asked. Silecchia replied, “Just keep looking, Father, and see what you see.”
“Oh my God,” Father Brian said. “I see it.”
As Father Brian stared, other rescue workers gathered around him. There was a long moment of silence as he beheld what he considered to be a sign. Against seeming insuperable odds, a 17-foot-long crossbeam, weighing at least two tons, was thrust at a vertical angle in the hellish wasteland. Like a cross.
Ever since the two jets had slammed into the twin towers on Sept. 11, leaving 2,753 dead, Father Brian had been asked by countless New Yorkers, “Why did God do this?” He would reply tartly, in his Brooklyn-born accent: “It had nuttin’ to do with God. This was the actions of men who abused their free will.” Now here was God explaining Himself. It was a revelation, proof that “God had not abandoned Ground Zero,” even as the awful excavations continued. (by Sally Jenkins, The Washington Post)
The Cross at Ground Zero
The museum’s purpose is to generate an emotional response, not an analytical one. There are multiple monitors showing, what was at the time, breaking television news coverage of the attacks on the World Trade Center (WTC), newspaper headlines from that afternoon, 911 emergency calls, video footage and photographs of the planes penetrating the twin towers. The museum goes to great length to transport you back to September 11, 2001. It wants you to feel what it was like on that day. It wants you to focus your emotional energy on that day. It does the job well as one comprehends the magnitude of that day. You are now in the deepest bowels of the two towers. To facilitate this, the museum labors to connect you emotionally and even physically to the site of the WTC and to the victims who perished in the towers. Maps throughout the museum show visitors where they are standing in relation to the original WTC buildings. Memorabilia salvaged from the WTC, from children’s clothing to receipts for office supplies, are on display. You can reach out and touch some of the original steel frames of the WTC.
Without a doubt, the most powerful part of the museum is the sections dedicated to telling the stories of the victims. There is no photography allowed in this area as you can sit in one dark room where pictures of individual victims are displayed, along with brief bios and audio commentary from a loved one telling an anecdote about the person they lost on 9/11. The stories are moving in their ordinariness. They are powerful and it continually loops the stories of the victims who died inside the towers. During my brief time inside, it displayed a newlywed, an art aficionado, a fan of Norse mythology, and a former high school jock - all victims of the attacks. One audio commentary was from a woman whose sister died on 9/11. She described how her sister loved to do Barbara Streisand imitations. None of the commentaries from loved ones were angry or vengeful. They came across as profound reflections on what it means to go on living life with wounds that never fully heal.
Another room had items from the Pentagon, with audiovisual presentations of what happened in Washington DC with American Airlines Flight 77 crashing into the Pentagon.
Pentagon room items
Another poignant find was the American Flag that firefighters raised among the rubble in the, now famous, photo. The flag was lost for several years but was found again and is now on display.
American Flag was raised among the rubble by NYC firefighters
Now it’s time to leave. There has been little discussion of how 9/11 actually changed America. As you ascend the escalators, from darkness to light, you hear the faint sound of a bagpipe playing from speakers hidden somewhere in the walls or ceiling, and perhaps you feel an involuntary tug of Anglo-Saxon reassurance. Still, for those intrigued by American and world history, this is an essential site to visit. It’s an important look back at how things were prior to the tragic events of 9/11. It’s a sobering look at exactly what happened on that beautiful fall day. And it’s a critical starting point for understanding how we got to where we are now as a nation.
Outside once again, at the Pool and looking back at the Museum there is the World Trade Center Transportation Hub, the spiny, bleach-white structure commonly known as the Oculus, designed to evoke the image of a dove taking flight from the hands of a child. Beauty found again within the footprint of the World Trade Center. They have transformed the several blocks where multiple buildings once stood into a beautiful Memorial and Museum for the world to see.
The Oculus on Ground Zero
It is a very impactful experience and I will return one day to spend more time hitting all of the galleries. It is emotionally draining but overall, a wonderful experience.