I can’t imagine visiting Manhattan and not making time to visit the 9-11 Memorial. I’m not a particularly patriotic person but neither were many of the people who died on that day. Just people going to work or traveling home or wandering by. It could have been any of us. I guess that’s what scares us all the most.
These photos are from October 2015. We were staying in Brooklyn where my son was living and more of less followed the crowds (and basic instincts) from the bridge to the site. At that time it was a quiet, sober place with only the sound of water falling endlessly. “Absence Made Visible” as the designer stated was his purpose. The names, I found out later, were not haphazardly etched into the stone. They are arranged so that those poor souls could rest forever near people they knew or worked with or died next to.
We didn’t go into the nearby museum as it was too lovely a day to be inside. Instead we made our way up to Central Park for another of my must sees.
Thank you for sharing this. I was in New York that day – tomorrow I will share what it was like for me…I still see the One World Tower regularly when I am in the west village or near the west side seaport…I have also gone inside the area but not to the museum…I will never be able to watch the footage ever again…I didn’t know about the placement of victims names….
Wow. I’m looking forward to reading your account. It was too beautiful of a day to go indoors plus seeing the Memorial for the first time is just so overwhelming.
I didn’t know that about the names. Thanks for telling us about the visit.
Yeah, they tried to keep groups together. Easier for the mourners to find.
I think that was very thoughtful.
Beautiful post. The last time I was in NYC was in 2022 although I didn’t have time to stop in to the memorial as I was in transit to my daughter and son-in-law’s place north of there. I had visited the memorial when it was in its infancy and your description of it finished is very meaningful. Imagine there was no war or 9-11. Only peace.
Thanks Margaret! I think they did an excellent job with the memorial. Something about seeing water tumble into that bottomless hole was quite moving.
To this day I can’t talk about 9/11 without choking up. I walked by those towers as they were being built. My mother was a New Yorker, my father worked on Wall Street. My girl friend was supposed to take the bar exam in tower one that morning but cancelled at the last minute due to illness.
I haven’t been to the memorial. Not sure I could take it…
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I can understand that. It’s actually a very peaceful place. The beaches at Normandy (which have been kept exactly as they were during the invasion) was a bit more overwhelming for me. Of course we were there on a rainy and miserable day!
Oh, I’d be a weeper at that one too!
I can’t recall where I first read this, but it more or less went like this: For those who think corruption is mostly found in financial transactions, I’d like to point out the vast potential in patriotism. It comes from some journalist or politician from NYC in the early 1900s or late 1880s. Incidentally, where have all the flowers gone? Duke
I think all of us who watched the horror on television – folks just like us killed for reasons most of us will never understand – left a deep hole in our psyches – thus the memorial is very apt. An endless hole always being filled by fresh tragedy.
The world in many respects is a horror. Things are really bad right now, and likely to get worse.
Yes, I believe you’re right.
I don’t know that anything could do the horror justice, but that looks to be a noble tribute.
I don’t seem to be able to watch the horrors of that terrible day anymore. Likewise, I can’t watch the events of what happened in London on July 7th 2005 anymore.
I visited the memorial but didn’t know there was a museum. And I didn’t know about the arrangement of the names of those who died either. For some reason, when I read that, it bought a chink of light to me.
I don’t the museum had been opened that long when we visited. I didn’t need to see anymore – I just wanted to pay my respects.
A lovely tribute, Jan, thanks so much.
You’re welcome – it’s hard to believe it’s been so long and yet, it still feels so real.
This is a beautiful post
Thank you!
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The Memorial is a beautiful place, despite the tragedy it commemorate. A place to look and be silent…
Great tribute, Jan! It was a very dark day for our country.
It was horrifying. I didn’t think anything could be worse but . . . it is.
Definitely!
Sigh…
A poignant place… beautifully stark and haunting. Thank you, Jan!
I think that’s what makes the memorial so affecting — it brings it back to the individual lives rather than just the enormity of the event. People who were simply going about an ordinary day, never imagining that anything could happen to them. That sense of “it could have been any of us” is what makes it so deeply unsettling.
I think so. And the sound of the water falling constantly mutes the background noise of the city and so you can focus on the names.