9/11: The Memorial

[Lucky]

The 9/11 Memorial officially is printed with the 11 in blue ink. Kind of festive, eh? It's 9/11.

(Did that color show up? I rarely get these things such as color and italics, or bold, right.)

But the colored 11, I think, refers to the blue lights which were put on the site to lite up the sky in memory of the twin towers. Or should that now be The Twin Towers?

About the time of the tenth anniversary of 9/11, I read a book called 102 Minutes, which gave just about a floor by floor description of what the occupants of the buildings faced on that fateful morning. It was quite moving.

Little did I know that soon after I would be in a hotel room overlooking the World Trade Center site. I could see that the building now known as One World Trade Center has finally started to look like a skyscraper. It's going to be very nice looking. There are two other buildings going up, neither to be as tall. A transit center with a fancy entrance is also underway at the PATH and MTA station entrances. But I kept in my mind what I had read. Horrible, horrible moments, right across from where I stood.

Also from my room I could see the new 9/11 Memorial. It consists so far of two tidal basins on the footprints of the original towers, with water flowing from the top into the basins. There is a wooded park, with granite blocks spaced throughout. A visitor center is under construction.

As we walked in the neighborhood, we passed a temporary 9/11 museum. It's really a gift shop in the guise of a museum, as it offers little in the artifact department- a steel girder,some art framed from a girder, posters, scraps of paper.

But we got tickets to see the actual 9/11 park, so we went. Big mistake. For one thing, we did not see anything that we had not seen from our room. But worse, the lines were long, the security heavy and imposing. We had to show our tickets about nine times. We went through airport type security. My guess is that some 200 police officers worked there in some capacity. That's plus all of the security personnel, the ticket takers, and, oh yes, the temporary visitor center, which is more of a gift shop. So we have a temporary visitor center and a temporary museum. In expectation of even larger crowds, the entrance queue is exceptionally long. We walked and walked.

So we then saw what we could see from our room. It is nice, and when finished will be even nicer. It is going to be a park where one can reflect on the tragedy of the date.

But just in case you missed the opportunity to get your 9/11 magnet, coffee mug, t-shirt or calendar or any other item associated with gift shops, there is, in addition to the temporary museum and the temporary visitor center, a Tribute Center, which, coincidentally, no doubt, looks suspiciously like a gift shop.

[eeyore]

The science channel recently ran a six part special called 'Rising' that was very interesting. Definitely worth keeping an eye out for reruns. Not sure if it's available in DVD yet. More info here: http://dsc.discovery.com/tv/the-rising/