We (Dan, Audrey, Andrew and I) were in Denver, staying with friends because Audrey was seeing her neurosurgeon regarding her VP shunt. She was 3 1/2 years old and Andrew 13 months old.
I will never forget the sinking feeling and horror of watching people falling to their deaths on live TV from the burning Twin Towers belching billows of black smoke. What were their last thoughts? Did they some how hope to survive against all odds? Or did they know “this is it”? Or could they think at all but only react? I don’t know if I could have been so brave as to jump.
All planes were grounded, so we had to get a rental car to drive home to San Antonio, TX.
For many months after 9/11, Americans seemed kinder to each other. We watched. We cried. We reflected. We were grateful for what we had. We pulled our loved ones a little closer. I wish we could have stayed in that spirit.
9/11 MEMORIAL & MUSEUM Status: 9/11 Memorial completed in 2011, 9/11 Museum completed in 2014 Use: Memorial (eight acres); museum (110,000 sq/ft) Architect: 9/11 Memorial by Michael Arad, landscape by Peter Walker, Museum by Snohetta
„Covering eight acres, the 9/11 Memorial contains the original footprints of the north and south towers with the 9/11 museum directly below the plaza. Construction began in 2006, the same time work on One World Trade Center and the west concourse, which connects Brookfield Place to the Oculus began taking shape. One critical aspect that had to be completed first before any work started was repairing the structural walls of the “bathtub,” the 70-foot reinforced slurry walls surrounding all sides of the sixteen acre site that keeps water out, as the complex sits on landfill that was once the banks of the Hudson River. The bathtub slurry walls were damaged in the collapse of the towers but luckily prevented the waters of the Hudson River from flooding the lower levels of the site during cleanup and rescue operations. One section of the slurry wall is left exposed and is displayed in the 9/11 museum, along with preserved artifacts and the last steel beam that was extracted from the site on May 30, 2002.
The two memorial footprints for the twin towers, known as “Reflecting Absence,” was designed by Michael Arad, a partner from Handel Architects. Arad wanted a tranquil space that functioned as a memorial and as a park in the middle of Lower Manhattan. Arad uses the footprint of the Twin Towers as the main geometric volume that lets water cascade down a 30-foot deep “void” and collect into a smaller square-shaped, central void in the middle of the pools. The bottom of the void, where the water collects and is pumped back up to the top, is purposely out of sight when standing along the edge. In some ways, this architectural gesture can symbolize and personify both the illusion of a void in the minds of those affected by 9/11, and a literal metaphor for mystery and deep contemplation. The thirty foot drop off is surrounded by etched bronze plates displaying the names of those lost on 9/11 and in the 1993 bombing of the Twin Towers. The names are organized according to those who worked at the World Trade Center, the four airplanes, the fallen firefighters and emergency operators from various engines ladders and precincts, and some by the request of families wanting to see their loved ones grouped with the names of their colleagues also lost on 9/11. The memorial opened on the tenth anniversary of 9/11.“
„Over 400 Swamp White Oak trees surrounding the memorial were brought in from Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, New Jersey and New York . The trees were first planted in the summer of 2010 and are maintained with a sophisticated network of irrigators for each tree below the stone tiles of the memorial.
Another important part of the memorial is the “Survivor Tree” that withstood the collapse of both towers and the cleanup operations in the following months. It was taken to a nursery and recovered over the next ten years before permanently being replanted on the western side of the south tower memorial. It is currently the tallest tree on site.“
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