911 Memorial

I had been putting off going to the 911 memorial for several reasons- only recently being open;  and not wanting to do it during the week on my own (whilst Bryan was at work); but I knew it was something that I had to do before leaving New York.

As mum was in town, we had done a lot of the tourist attractions that I wrote about earlier in my other posts, the only one left was the 911 Memorial.

To get in to see the memorial you will need a ticket which you get online for free. When booking the ticket you request a time at which you will be entering the memorial, you will not be given access prior to that time. Before arriving at the site make sure you have been to the bathroom because there are no restrooms available and all the bars, fast food restaurants restrict access to their bathrooms if you do not have a receipt from something you have purchased within their store.

The line to enter into the site can be very long, but it does more relatively fast. You will need to go through a full security check just like you do at the airport. Bags, shoes etc go through a scanning machine. Whilst waiting in line to get through the security check the mood around us was very somber and not a lot of chatter was going on.

Nothing can prepare you for the two big waterfalls that flow where the two buildings stood. The names of all the people that died on that day, whether it was here in the twin towers, on the flight that went down in Pennsylvania or at the Pentagon are listed around the two waterfalls. The names were not in alphabetical order, like most memorials, each name was carefully placed next to a colleague or friends name that had also died on that day, so that they were not alone.

One of the waterfalls

Even unborn babies were not forgotten.

 I was so moved by the site, at the respect they had shown to such an horrific event. It was not until visiting the site and standing next to these two massive holes in the ground where two skyscrapers once stood could I truly begin to imagine how terrible it must have been that day for the victims and how hard it still must be for those families left behind.

The memorial is not just about the two waterfalls. They have planted lots of trees and the trees that where chosen were ones that were native to the three areas that were hit that day. However there is one special tree. The "Survivor Tree".  It was recovered from the rubble at the World Trade Centre site in October 2001, long after recovery workers expected to find anything alive at the site. At the time of its recovery it was 8-feet tall, badly burned, and it had only one living branch. Prior to the attacks, the tree had lived at the World Trade Center site for several decades. In November 2001 it was taken to a nursery and taken care of. Then, in the spring of 2002, the tree had new growth and its caretaker at the Bronx nursery "knew the 'Survivor Tree' would make it.