911 Memorial

Lori and I visited the 911 Memorial this morning.  The overhead clouds and drizzling rain depicted our emotions.  It was a stark contrast from a week of shooting surrounded by excited tourists, laughing and rushing to and from.  Very quiet.  Lots of observing, remembering, tears, emotions. 

911 memorial

building tower 1

the museum

They are "rebuilding" the twin towers - sort of.  One will be taller than the other and when finished, it will be the tallest building in NY.  The complex will be an intricate system of mass transit, business, and restaurants.

Some verbiage from the memorial:

The 9/11 Memorial opened on September 11, 2011, the 10th anniversary of the attacks. It

is located on the western side of the former World Trade Center complex where the Twin

Towers once stood. The Memorial was designed by two architects, Michael Arad and

Peter Walker, whose proposal was selected in a design competition out of 5,201

submissions from 63 countries.

The Memorial park surrounds two enormous reflecting pools set within the footprints of

the North and South towers. This is where the towers used to stand. The pools feature

30-foot waterfalls – the largest man-made waterfalls in North America. The water

cascades into reflecting pools, finally disappearing into the center voids. The names of

people who were killed in the 9/11 attacks in New York, at the Pentagon, and on Flight 93,

as well as in the 1993 bombing at the WTC, are etched in bronze around the edges of

the pools.

The plaza is lined with cobblestones and will eventually have more than 400 swamp

white oak trees, creating a space for reflection separate from the sights and sounds

of the surrounding city. The trees were selected from a 500-mile radius of the WTC site,

including nurseries located in New York, Pennsylvania, and near Washington, DC, to

symbolize areas impacted on 9/11.