9/11 Memorial...

On Sunday afternoon Abi and I went down to Ground Zero to visit the 9/11 Memorial and the new World Trade Center site.

After going through the security checks and navigating the path leading all the way around the building sites, we entered the 9/11 Memorial gardens and were instantly hit with the peaceful and calm feeling that surrounds the area.

The memorial garden has been so beautifully put together. The trees, the benches, the walkways, the grass, it's all incredibly tasteful done and the memorials themselves, the two pools are quite incredible. The footprints of the two World Trade Centers have been transformed into beautiful pools, lined with black stone and with waterfalls running along each edge.

 

The water, although fairly loud itself, manages to completely drown out the noise of Manhattan, the building sites and the nearby busy roads, you feel like there's nothing surrounding you at all - which was clearly the intention. After a while you become used to the sound of water and the whole area just feels silent, a rare and striking thing for the middle of New York.

Running around each of the two pools are the names of each of the victims of the three plane crashes and the earlier attacks on the World Trade Center in 1993...

Each name has been cut out of the copper plates, the intention was to create something tactile, so people could run their fingers through the letters of the names. There were some people taking rubbings of the names of their family members, others were leaving flags of flowers in the names.

We watched the documentaries about the designing of the memorial and the new World Trade Centers and they talked about the reasoning behind the placement of the names. The names aren't arranged in alphabetical order, each name is placed next to the name of a friend, or a work colleague, someone they travelled to work with, or someone they would spend their lunch times with. It makes the whole arrangement far more personal, it's such a beautiful touch.

It's an incredibly moving place to be, it's essentially a cemetary for a lot of families, somewhere they can come and visit the final resting place of their loved ones. There were people having a quite moment alone by the water, there were people sitting on the benches with their families, there were people there proudly telling the stories of their brave relative, or of the bravery of the firefighters, telling stories of survivors, or those who weren't so lucky - trying to spread the memory of those who died.

There were a lot of Firemen walking around, paying the respects to the many many firefighters who lost their lives trying to save others. All of the firefighters visiting the memorial we either wearing their uniforms or a commemorative t-shirt representing their team.

As well as it being a place to reflect, it also feels very much like a place to look to the future. With the ever on-going building work surrounding the gardens and the amazing and stunning architecture of the new structures around...

 The new World Trade Center is only two thirds of the way completed and already is a truly awesome looking building shadowing over the surrounding skyscrapers...

We were saying that it's quite a monumental thing to be in New York while the construction of the new tower's taking place. Just as people talked about the previous World Trade Centers and being able to remember them going up, we'll be able to look back on this time and remember seeing the new buildings going up.

 Come 2014, when all the different buildings are finished, including the amazing Transportation Hub (I've only seen the concept renderings, but they look incredible!) I think the whole area will have a totally different feeling. It will still be a place of remembrance, but also a place of transformation and strength.