9/11 Memorial – Life Between 0 and 1

I spent this past Saturday at the 9/11 Memorial and Museum in New York City, NY. It was an experience I won’t soon forget and had a greater impact on me than I had anticipated. After reviewing all the picture that I took, I selected a few that expressed the most emotion as I walked through the quiet and somber museum.

orig_freeddomtower_oculus — I was in awe of this when I turned the corner off Broadway towards the Museum and Memorial. In the background, you see the newly constructed and completed Freedom Tower, currently the tallest building in New York City. In the foreground is the Oculus, a capstone for the underground city of stores and the grand subway station for Lower Manhattan. I couldn’t get any decent pictures on the inside due to the shear size of the space, but it was bright and felt like standing inside a dinosaur skeleton.

This is the first thing you see when you walk into the Museum. One of the few standing tridents of support structure following the collapse of the North Tower. The small picture to the left shows the location of this steel in reference to the middle picture. The third picture shows the length of the piece that was on display (I’m 4 stories down from the main level)

orig_tridentbottom — This is the bottom of the trident in the previous picture. It’s hard to tell, but that steel is two inches thick and the bolts are 1 1/2″ across. You can see the location showing at bottom: #1 North

orig_stairwellb_northtower — Once I realized what this stairway was signifying, I had to take a picture of it. This was Stairwell B where they found the last survivors of the tower collapse. The bottom flight is almost unrecognizable as steps, but the marble and granite is practically untouched on the top flight evidenced by the smooth left side at the top.

orig_southtowerimpactsteel_bottom — South Tower impact steel.

orig_northtowerimpactsteel — North Tower impact steel

orig_southtowerboxcolumn — This is the South Tower box column cut off at ground level after the excavation of the pit. It’s hard to tell in this picture, but that steel frame is 5″ thick and this was one of 84 box columns that held up the outer facade of the South Tower.

orig_southtowerfoundation — This is one of the South Tower foundations, I’m not sure which facade this supported. You can see the box columns clearly in this picture, with the lateral supports on either side holding them in place. Below the lateral supports are the solid steel plates bolted to the concrete foundation below. Each steel plate weighed 1 ton (2,000 lbs.) and had foundation pillars that were sunk down various depths to the bedrock below.

orig_northtowerfoundation — This is a similar view from the previous picture but for the North Tower. This shows a much greater detail of the scale of the steel plates the box columns sat upon. Again, each box column had 5″ thick steel sides sitting upon a 1 ton steel foundation plate.

orig_northtowerspire — This is a 1/10th section of the North Tower spire that rose up to make the North Tower the tallest building in the world at the time the World Trade Center was completed. There are remnants of wires and radio equipment strewn in the middle of the spire.

orig_engine3wreckage — One of the hardest displays to walk around and see up close. The remains of Engine 3, the first engine on the scene after the first plane struck the North Tower. The front, where the engine would have been, was disintegrated beyond recognition after it was excavated from the scene, where the back of the truck was relatively intact given the devastation around it.

orig_hudsonriverwall — I wish the scale could be better on this picture. This is the river wall that protected the lower levels of the World Trade Center from the Hudson River literally 100 yards on the other side of the wall. This wall is a full 8 stories high and I’m standing at the bottom of the exhibit. It was difficult to grasp the shear scale of some of these things during the tour.

orig_northtowerpool — I spent almost a half hour in this spot much to the disappointment of the people behind me trying to take a picture. This is the North Tower Pool and the full size of the basin is 1 acre, the exact footprint of where the building used to stand. The center square is symbolic of never forgetting the tragedies that befell the United States on 9/11/2001.

orig_statueofliberty — We rode past the Statue of Liberty on the ferry ride over to New York from Staten Island.

orig_statenislandferryport — This is the ferry terminal on the New York side. The sign was rather impressive.

orig_goodtimeendofday — We ended the day at Clinton Castle (no relation) and my daughter, although tired, was still happy we got to see New York today. We were all ready to head home. Didn’t stop her from having a goofy grin on her face while I took the picture.

One last thought, and this is a quote on one of the largest walls. Speaks for itself.