trip's start Griggstown canoe Ground Zero, Manhattan TriBeCa playground Times Square
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2004-07 Manhattan Island, New York City: Ground Zero, World Trade Center
Sunday 11 July 2004
Three years less two months after the Islamist suicide attack against the World Trade Center towers in Manhattan, eulogized here, we prepare to visit Ground Zero.
There's food and drink in the old Honda we're borrowing from Mom. We're about to start the caravan (Omi Marga wanted to see it too). It's about a three-quarter hour drive from Mom's to the Holland Tunnel.
We find really good parking at Duane & Greenwich, a short amble over to the old WTC area. A block away we come across the first of the memorials to the victims. Pictures, stories, and trinkets festoon the walls. At the bottom right of this photo you can see photos of four firefighters.
Further along the way we come across this collection of items from in and around the towers that day. In an eerie coîncidence, the dust covering these items is similar in color to the dust of the playa at Burning Man. One is tragedy, the other celebration. (Shiver)
As we approach "the Pit", as I've heard it referred to by the surviving firefighters, we see the Port Authority Police command post. It's a modest affair, a couple of trailers connected by a plywood awning. It's one of the banners which catches my eye. (A detailed view will follow.)
Here's the detail: a beautiful guardian angel for the PAP with what I'm guessing is a roll call of the deceased.
Here's the first of several panoramas I've made of the WTC site. Here we are at the north-east corner, next to the command post, under the information center's awning, looking southwest.
Poking my camera lens through the holes in the gate gets you a view westward.
We decide to find the Freedom Tower's newly-laid cornerstone, which the New York Times says dominates the site. I don't know if it's the ghost of Jason Blair, or some pharmeceuticals in their lunch, but the twenty-ton granite block is nowhere to be seen. We head west through a walkway when we see this simple memorial from a Japanese high school.
Here's a self-portrait at the northwest corner, looking southeast. Over my left shoulder you can see the ramp going into the Pit. It's all so clean, much moreso than when we were here a year ago, for Lila's second birthday.
2004-07 Manhattan Island, New York City: TriBeCa's Washington Park playground
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