Spent my first September 11 anniversary in New York yesterday, and it was a sobering experience on a number of levels.
First, I took my children the day before on a tour of the World Trade Center site and the Tribute WTC Visitors Center that's currently located on the Southeast corner of the site. Very sobering. I've been there before, but my son, who had never seen it, was struck by the sizet of the space, and when the size of the buildings were described to him, the enormity of the twin towers and how devastating the attacks were.
Next, we went to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, and were reminded looking back at the Manhattan skyline of how different it seems without those two towers perched near the southern tip. An outdated photograph on a display on the island showed what the view looked like prior to that awful day in 2001.
Saturday, we watched the ceremony that began at 8:46 a.m. on television, and the reading of the names was as lengthy and painful as it always is. Having the children of the dead read their parent's name and send words of love and loss is gut-wrenching.
Afterwards, there was a hate rally two blocks away, and I couldn't help but be struck at how those who insisted "my God is better and more important than your God" were thinking the same thoughts the hijackers did as they plunged their planes into the towers. I am constantly amazed at how we humans as a species can learn so little and be so blind.
Finally, we finished the day near midnight nearly 60 blocks away, taking in a awe-inspiring view of the city at the Top of the Rock at Rockefeller Center, where I took the photograph at top of the twin beams of light that shine skyward every Sept. 11 night from the WTC site.
I wasn't in New York that day nine years ago. But as then-governor George Pataki said at the time, "Today, all Americans are New Yorkers."
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