It’s damn near impossible to take a photograph that would give a fair representation of the sheer beauty and grandeur of the nearly completed tower and its surroundings. The place where the World Trade Center used to be is now occupied by new buildings and a memorial park. Its central element consists of two waterfalls that are simply impossible to ignore.
The World Trade Center is still a building site. The fences are going to stay here for at least one more year.
You can reach the place via the museum. Though technically the entry is free, the suggested price is $10. For that donation, one receives an armband that commemorates the victims of 9/11.
The waterfalls are enormous, beautiful in their simplicity and quite depressing. You can’t hear anything but the ominous hum of falling water. No picture can truly illustrate the mood of this place. You really have to witness and experience this for yourself. Stand at the edge of the monument, look at the water falling down into a seemingly bottomless pit and suddenly it becomes very clear to you why so many people visit this place to reminisce about their loved ones.
The tourists are a bit less serious. Nothing surprising. It’s not like I was about to break down crying, either. This area sort of fuses two contrasting moods together. On the one hand, it’s meant to commemorate the deaths of the terrorist attack victims. On the other hand, it kind of seems like a good destination for a Sunday walk with your family.
Today, the entire financial center and the World Trade Center complex are covered in thick fog. When I woke up, you could only see half of it.
When they were beginning to build this tower, I thought they could have done a better job designing it, because it was rather ugly looking. A lot of architects still seem to share that sentiment, but the longer I’m here, the more I start to like this tower. It’s visible from a lot of different areas of NYC. You can spot it from a street across Manhattan, a few minutes from Central Park, so I often employ the tower as a map of sorts. Walking down most streets, if I get lost, all I need to do is look up and I suddenly know where I am, more or less. It’s even more impressive come night time, because it’s the best-lit building in town.
I spent the 12th anniversary of 9/11 in Central Manhattan. In this area, life goes on as normal. One could come to the conclusion that nobody even remembers the anniversary, but that’s far from the truth. Any mention of the attacks uttered to a New Yorker will summon horrible memories they’d rather not have.
