I had occasion to visit NYC last night. I started out going to North Jersey to pick up an item I bought on eBay. A fiberglass tonneau for my truck. My significant other, being a "Flatlander" from Indiana, had never been to NYC and wanted to see the Statue Of Liberty.
After conducting business and having the best Italian meal I've had in years I took her into the city so she could get a small taste of the Big Apple.
The last time I was in the city itself was 1980. One of my most vivid memories was standing at the foot of the WTC towers. For those that never saw them in person, there is no description that I can give here to do them justice. I laid on the ground and took a picture up through towers from between them. Just being a tourist, I suppose.
The best place to view the Statue Of Liberty, IMHO, is from Battery Park. Ground Zero is just a handful of blocks from there, so we found a parking spot and walked down to have look.
Now, I don't get emotional very often. I was in the volunteer fire service for 28 years and have pretty much seen it all. I grieved for my fallen comrades in the weeks following the attacks and had put it behind me, or so I thought.
Standing at the fence surrounding the pit, looking into that hole in the ground brought it all back. As we walked south to get a better look, we passed the house that used to be the home of Engine 10 and Ladder 10. It is empty now. The dust still covers some of the exterior, which is riddled with dents and holes in the metal fascia from the collapse.
After I collected myself, we went across the street to the Church where the body of Fr. Judge, FDNY Chaplain, was laid on the altar by his comrades after he was killed in the collapse. The fence surrounding the Church has become a Memorial to those who died. It is a block square and filled with mementos and other items left there by visitors.
Seeing all the things left there by people from all over the world was
touching. Every corner of the globe that you can possibly think of. More so than the attacks, that memory of that makeshift Memorial will affect me for the rest of my life.
For all those who question whether we should go after the people who
perpetrated, and helped, the acts there and in Virginia and here in my home state of PA need to go there and experience it for themselves. Gaze upon the hole in the ground where two giant towers once stood. Read the names of those that died there. Walk around that fence and see for yourselves the outpouring of grief and rememberence. Go to Battery Park and see the sphere that once stood at the foot of the towers, now dented and scratched with a large hole where magnetic north would be. Look at the Eternal Flame that flickers at it's base. Then walk down to the water, put a quarter in the binoculars and take a good, long look at Lady Liberty. Perhaps then, you will see things just a little differently.
Thank you for letting me share this.

Cliff

 

It must be devastating. My wife and I visited our daughter and son-in-law a year ago in April. I have been to NYC countless times in my driving career but never got to view and do what we did. I was hoping to get back before they moved but I wasn't fast enough. I still and always will remember bitching about spending $30+ to go to the top of a building. Well I am sure eating my words now. To think we were standing on the observation deck midday and easily could have been standing there on 9/11. I'll never forget what I saw that day.