9/11 Memorial - NYC 2014

 

Saturday morning Tate slept until almost 7!  Having not gone to sleep until almost 9 the night before I wasn't surprised, and I was extremely happy.  I roused myself out of bed around 6:30 because we had a big day ahead!  My goal was to leave the apartment by 8am to catch the subway down to The World Trade Center to visit the 9/11 Memorial.  We had 10am reservations for the museum, and I didn't want to be late.  In addition I wanted to be able to visit the grounds and see the fountains in the footprints of where the North and South Tower previously stood.  We had visited the grounds two years ago, but I wanted to go again.

Sadly, the weather was awful.  It was raining when we woke up, and it rained all day long.  And I mean all day long.  It was constant.  That kind of rain is not something that I'm used to.  Here it will rain, pour, deluge us for an hour or two, but we don't have constant rain and drizzle for 12 hours.  Ugh.  And of course it was quite chilly as well...in the low 40s.  I had my mommy with me, so I knew it was going to be an event to get us to the WTC.  We got loaded up with stroller, back pack, coats, hats, gloves, boots and made our way downstairs by 8:15am.

We walked a couple of blocks to the train station only to discover it was closed until Monday morning at 5am!!  Thankfully a NYC subway worker came up the steps at that moment and instructed us on how to catch a shuttle bus 14 blocks to the next train station.  (Oh and thank goodness for the HopStop app on my phone which told me which trains to take each time!)

We shoved ourselves onto the bus with the rest of humanity and made our way down to the subway station!  I even met a gentleman from Houston!!  Such a small world!

We got our tickets for the train, I finagled Tate's stroller up and over the turnstile and we were on our way for 35 minute train ride.  I was shocked the train was packed at 8:30am on a Saturday morning.

Tate was the happiest rider on the Subway Saturday morning...

 We arrived at our stop and after a few false starts we made our way to the 9/11 Memorial.  Walking up to the grounds, the hallowed grounds, of this most tragic place just makes my heart drop.  I'm tearing up right now thinking about it.  To think of the fear, pain, hurt, horror and huge loss of life that occurred right under my feet just breaks my heart.  There's a stillness in this space.  You can almost feel the events of 9/11/01 if you stand still.  Not so much the planes crashing into the buildings, but the despair of those present that Tuesday morning.  To know that so much death occurred under my feet and in the air around me almost brought me to my knees.

Freedom Tower 



We made our way inside the museum.  First stop was a 15 minute chronicling the events of 9/11 and the emotional responses of the American leaders and first responders.  I wasn't sure if it was going to be appropriate for Tate to see, but one of the tour guides assured me it would be.  Now having seen it, I'm not so sure, but what's done is done.  Tate is young enough that I don't know that he truly understood what he saw...the planes hitting the towers, the towers collapsing, people jumping from the buildings, the dust and flames from the fall of the towers, the people running away and the horror on the faces of those on the ground watching the disaster unfold.

 

I did learn something new that day:  President Bush had authorized that any plane that didn't respond to air traffic control would be shot down by fighter jets, no questions asked.  Now, many people including  my sister and father said they knew about this, but I was unaware.  I was almost numb hearing Bush say those words.  What a horrible decision to have to make.  Just awful.  Yet, there would have been no other choice.



We walked around the memorial area for about an hour. There's lots to see, read and absorb. I didn't get to do/see much having Tate with me;  in addition Lindsey didn't want to be standing and walking around so much with the marathon less than 24 hours away. Sigh.  So I saw some highlights.  I will definitely be going back.

 


 
 
 


The Last Column

 



 

 The North Tower Antenna

 

 

 

 

 

Survivor's Steps

 
 
 

 

 

 

 

 

Then there's the Memorial Exhibition - it commemorates the lives of the 2,977 men, women and children who lost their lives in the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001 and February 26, 1993.  Touchscreen tables provide audio remembrances described by family members or friends of every single victim.

 

I could only stay in that hall for 2 minutes.  The magnitude of loss is indescribable.  I didn't dare touch one of the screens to hear about anyone's loved one. 

 

There is an education center in the museum for children;  I took Tate to it.  There is a photograph of the North and South Tower which is the last known picture of the two towers.  It was taken around 830am on the morning of September 11.  What everyone has always said about that day in NYC is how perfect the sky was.  Just a clear, picture perfect blue sky (I also remember the sky here was crystal clear as well).  That blue wall in the picture above was created from the blue sky in that photograph.  There are 2,977 blue tiles, each a different hue found in that sky that day.  The educator in the education room explained that to Tate after offering him the opportunity to do one of five crafts...he chose to paint the blue sky.  She pulled out the water colors and he went to work, gazing at the last photo of the Twin Towers.

 

Here's Tate with his rendition of that photograph...

 

 

 

 

On the right is the North Tower, the left the South Tower.  The black on the right is the fire hose with the blue water gushing out to put out the red fire engulfing the towers.  The taller green structure is another building visible in the photograph.  The shorter green structure with the purple circle on top is a flower, so the people who died won't be sad.  The purple stream flowing into the blue water of the Hudson is the extra water for the firefighters.  He insisted on painting with the brown...I asked if those were the Survivor's Steps...he said yes.  He wanted to draw something with the orange...I asked if he thought a cross would be a good idea and he excitedly said yes!

He also has a lovely blue sky.

We will never forget.