Rising from the Ashes

Last weekend I spent the last weekend of my vacation in New York City, a place that I've visited several times since moving to Philly but never really in its entirety. Prior to residency, I had only been to New York once, during my junior year of high school. At that time, the World Trade Center was still standing, though I only saw it from the windows of a harbor cruise ship. My next visit to the city was in 2009, during my intern year, because my college roommate was working in NY at the time and invited me for the weekend. Since then, I have tried to make a day trip to New York at least every 2 months, each time going somewhere/doing something different to check off my NY bucket list. In my visits to NY, I've been to the Empire State Building, watched "Spiderman: Turn off the Dark" on Broadway (twice!), ridden a water taxi to the Statue of Liberty (when my parents came to visit), ate ramen at Ippudo, and been to both the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). One place I had never visited up close, however, was Ground Zero.

The first time I laid eyes on Ground Zero was from a plane in 2009, when I flew from Rochester to La Guardia Airport en route to Philly. I'd always been fascinated about the events of September 11, 2001, particularly the stories of survivors who escaped the carnage and the firefighters/policemen/civilians who gave their lives in the end to help others escape. I rarely ever went to Lower Manhattan (where Ground Zero was), as most of my time in NY was spent in Midtown, but on the rare occasions I did go to Lower Manhattan, I captured pictures of work in progress.

This was taken in summer of 2011. And nearly one year later, it has reached its full height.

The 9-11 museum hasn't opened yet (will likely open on September 11, 2012), but the Memorial was open to visitors. Admission was free but passes must be reserved in advance, so I booked my ticket online and joined the huge throng of visitors from all around the world to view the memorial.

The layout of the  Memorial had two pools in the footprints of the Twin Towers (the South Tower waterfall and the unfinished Museum in the background are seen above). I tried to imagine what the towers must have looked like up close in 2001, but could not. There were so many names inscribed along the wall surrounding the pools, with several reading "____ and her unborn child" for the women who had been pregnant when they died. All those names were a grim reminder of all that was lost. Amazingly, at the North Pool I spotted a rainbow hidden in the water.

Then there was the "Survivor Tree," a pear tree that once stood outside the Twin Towers and was reduced to a stump after the attacks. Miraculously, it survived and was taken to a nursery where it grew new branches and eventually grew more than 30 feet tall. Recently it was moved back to the Memorial, where it is held in place with support wires. Up close, you can see the original stump pulled from the rubble of the towers and the newer branches that grew from that stump after it was rescued. Truly a survivor.

I feel fortunate to have been able to visit the Memorial and pay my respects to the ones who died on September 11, 2001. Someday when the museum opens, I will definitely be back again.