On July 11, 2012 I visited the site of the World Trade Center; I had visited before when one could only peer through the fence and shudder, when foreigners would line up and take photos of one another against the background of devastation and restriction.

I watched over the years as the debris was cleared. I watched every memorial, listened to every name. I cried for people I never met and for the families that will forever miss them.

But visiting at this point, with the dust gone along with the shards and blood stains, was a surreal experience.

One needs to make an appointment to show up with a timed ticket.
the ticket is shown to a security guard at the first checkpoint. The visitor walks along the site’s perimeter for what seems for miles in the heat.

You are herded into a building airport style, your pockets are emptied and your belt is removed. Your stuff goes into vinyl baskets and is passed through the X-ray machine as you are screened pre-flight. Pick up your stuff and exit the building and don’t forget your ticket and photo ID. Your ticket is marked in red at another check point and you continue walking for what feels like miles. it begins to dawn on you that you are walking around a huge fenced space that contains what used to be and what will be. The scale is inconceivable. You are still walking and turn a corner and your ticket is checked again.

The fence disappears and there it is: space where unimaginably tall buildings stood and are now no longer. Towering over what was is a building in progress, the Freedom Tower is even taller by the twins by 300 feet and yet the mind doesn’t conceive of it. Nothing could be taller than what was, nothing, but it is true and the glass fills in blank eyes as the frame ascends.

The sound of water rushing and rushing. The sound never ends. A natural, calming, white-noise sound, of life giving water.

Part 1: the brochure: Please click on the pages to enlarge them.

>>>On to Part b: Photographs and reaction

12 CommentsChronological   Reverse   Threaded

reply greenwytch wrote on Jul 13 wow……*lost for words* except these.

reply forgetmenot525 wrote on Jul 13   what an experience.

reply sweetpotatoqueen wrote on Jul 13 I can’t imagine the feeling of this space.

reply nomadtraveller wrote on Jul 14 Saw it when it was a building site.  Thanks for this, Sue.

reply opossumd wrote on Jul 24 Your description works poignantly – with no need to enlarge the pictures, I can see them in my mind’s eye. Shuddering.