I have to admit, this post is considerably harder to write
than yesterday’s was. It’s easy to write about new construction and give facts
and details without thinking about the reason those buildings needed to be
replaced. That’s a much harder task when discussing the memorial and upcoming
museum, because it’s so simple to get caught up in the emotions of what they’re
intended to commemorate. These areas
were designed with one purpose: to ensure that everyone, and everything, that
perished on 9/11 is remembered in a place of honor.
The National September 11 Memorial
I’m not sure exactly what I was expecting. I had visited the Vietnam Veterans’ Memorial
in Washington, D.C. as a kid, and I remember distinctly the feel of the letters
carved on that wall, and the faces of the other visitors as they located the
names they were looking for. I think I
was expecting a comparable feeling here, not just because of the similarity in
the way these two memorials list out each name, but also because so many people’s
emotions about the two events were so similar: loss, anger, incomprehension. I was not expecting
the absolute reverence this site commands as you walk up to it. The city is such a noisy place, compounded by
the construction noises coming from the Trade Center buildings as they grow,
but as you walk towards the North and South Pools, every bit of external sound
drops away. All you hear is the sound of
the water.
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The South Pool is
shown at foreground, with the
Museum and 1 World Trade in the background to the
right.
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By design, you cannot see the bottom of the second tier when
standing on the ground. The pools are identical in footprint to the Twin Towers
and yet honestly, they seemed so small in comparison to the surrounding
structures that it’s hard to imagine the two massive buildings fitting into
these two small squares. (I mentioned this to one of the on-site guides, a
young man named Steven, who says he hears that all the time.) Each person whose life was lost on 9/11 or in
the 1993 attack, including those yet to be born (I counted at least 6 women
listed as “… and Her Unborn Child” just by casual glance) is listed around the
raised bronze borders of the North or South Pool, nearly 3,000 in all. The
names are grouped according to where the individuals were when they died – not just
what building or plane they were in at the time, but also in proximity to the
other people whose remains were located near their own. If family members
requested that two names be listed near each other, those requests were honored
as well.
We asked Steven why there were so few American flags close
to the memorial. In responding, he pointed out several other missing items that
we had failed to notice on our own. Many sites built “in memoriam” will allow
donors to sponsor bricks or pavers, which will bear a message relating to those
they want remembered. There is no such option here.
There are also no bathrooms, and no trash
cans.
These are all intentional
omissions, designed to keep the focus where it belongs, giving utmost dignity
to the names engraved on the memorial.
That dignity, and a pride of purpose, seemed to be universal
to those employed at the site. I watched
for a while as one worker carefully knelt to pick litter from a bed of mulch –
you can see him working in the background of the image below, in gray shirt and
black pants. Every employee that we encountered had that same intense aura
about them, as if they came to work here specifically to ensure that the site
kept its significance. I’m sure I’m not stating that as clearly as I experienced
it, but what I’m trying to convey is that these people clearly feel that what
they are doing, however minute the detail may be, is of utmost importance to giving
this site and those being remembered the sacredness they deserve.
The park employs volunteers, all of whom are either
survivors themselves or family members of those who passed, to give “person-to-person
history”. We stopped for a few minutes
to listen to one of these speakers, a woman who lost her husband, a first
responder. It took her several months to
piece together what exactly happened to him on 9/11. His unit was already en
route to the World Trade Center when the second plane hit. They parked the fire
truck several blocks away and walked the rest.
His body was located in November 2002, a full 14 months after the attack. He was wearing his helmet, but his jacket was
wrapped around a civilian found nearby. She made a point of saying that in all
of her questions about that day, “Why?” has never been one of them. To her there is no “why”; he was simply doing
his job.
9/11 Memorial
Museum
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The Museum,
shown from the South Pool.
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In between the two pools is the Museum Pavilion. Built of steel and glass, the shape of the
building itself is intended to mimic the lines of the original Twin Towers,
however in this version they are laying on their side and tilted towards the
earth, rather than standing straight and skyward. When completed, the Museum will reach 7
stories below ground, and serve as a dedicated memorial to the individual lives
lost. The exhibitions will include audio
recordings of survivors recounting the day’s events, and biographies of the
deceased. The museum will also house
many of the remaining structural elements of the original Towers, including the
last two original tridents. (Four
remained semi-intact after the buildings fell, but two of those were
irreparably damaged in transit to a holding facility.) The Museum intends to open to the public by
the end of 2012.
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The steel Tridents
once stood as an iconic
symbol of the Twin Towers.
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These two were salvaged from
the North Tower.
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The Sphere
We made one side trip to visit a piece of the original
complex that’s now located off-site but within walking distance. In the plaza between the Twin Towers stood a bronze
sculpture named “The Sphere”, by artist Fritz Koenig. After the attacks, the Sphere was uncovered in
surprisingly good shape considering that debris from the Towers had quite
literally rained down upon it. Six
months after 9/11, the Sphere was placed in Battery Park, and on September 11, 2002
an Eternal Flame was placed alongside of it as a temporary memorial to those
killed in the attack. Online petitions
have circulated asking to return the Sphere to the new Trade Center complex, but
officials from the 9/11 Memorial have responded that this will likely not
happen.
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The Sphere in
its original location. Behind,
you can
see the Tridents of the Twin Towers.
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The Sphere in
its current location in Battery Park
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All in all, the 8-acre memorial site is breathtaking. I know that there were many critics of the
design, those who didn’t think the “void” of the pools was the correct way to restructure
the site, but frankly I can’t imagine any other construct doing such an amazing
job of capturing the sense of loss while at the same time bringing such peace
to those who see it. May we never
forget.
Special thanks to Ken
Lewis, Beverly Thomes, and the others at IIDA who organized this trip. I feel privileged to have been a part of it.
---Monique
WALL COVERINGS:
