Saturday morning we were up with the sun and on our way to the National 9/11 Memorial Museum before it opened to the public to take the guided tour.
the last known photograph of the Twin Towers, minutes prior to the attack and a perfect illustration of what almost everyone remembers about that day before the horror began: it was an achingly and astonishing clear blue day.
The bulk of the museum is six stories underground in the "bathtub" that was such an engineering feat in the late 60s, built in an entirely new way to hold back the waters of the Hudson and create the space for the construction of the twin towers.
When both towers collapsed in twin 10 second pulses, the chaos going on in this space was unimaginable. And yet the walls held.
The wall of the tub is to the left in the photo below. On the right is one of the memorial pools, from underneath.
2,983 different shades of blue, one for each individual killed here
The letters are forged from WTC steel recovered from the site
The families of those who have not yet been identified have a private space behind this wall. All remains yet to be named are held here as their temporary cemetery.
This past year, as the technologies continue to progress, two more victims were identified and laid to rest by their loved ones.
with the Survivor Tree between the memorial pools. The tree, battered and broken, but alive at the site, was taken to an arborist, nursed back to health, and returned to its rightful place among the memorial.
we left cherry blossoms on the names of our firefighters this time
St. Nicholas church, the only building that did not bear the WTC name that was destroyed has finally been rebuilt and reopened.
