Tribute WTC visit

I don't think anybody actually cares where I was on 9/11. The point is, I wasn't in New York City, and I didn't lose anyone. But this past Thursday, I had the chance to become more deeply a part of NYC history by visiting the Tribute WTC Visitor Center at 120 Liberty St.

Our Reporting Downtown class started off with a $10 audio-guided walking tour around the site of the former Twin Towers. Normally I’m not the kind of person who pays for a tour, museum or exhibit. But the 16 first-person accounts of survival and lost loved ones brought me to a place of such empathy and experience that mere pictures on a wall wouldn't have been enough.

Tribute WTC volunteer guide John Henderson, who works at the NYU Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, led us through Galleries 4 and 5 and gave us some background on the events of 9/11.

The most moving part for me was not the footage of the collapse, but the archives of daily life in the World Trade Center. The contrast was shocking: images of the daily hustle and bustle in the plaza then, all of a sudden, a series of crashes, panicked 9-1-1 calls and heroic acts that ended in national tragedy.

The narrative of the galleries is very coherently and cohesively set up. Columns from floor to ceiling show the height of World Trade Center windows. A model of the Twin Towers shows how tiny a person was in comparison—and how far it would have been to jump. The long wall printed with actual missing persons flyers puts faces and names to the victims. A huge mound of twisted, melted iron from the foundation of a tower makes us feel the impact of the crash and collapse.

Fittingly, the names of the victims, from workers employed in the offices of the World Trade Center to the firefighters and policemen that led the rescue efforts, are memorialized in the exhibit. Not only are they displayed on a wall but they're also in pictures, books and mugs, as well on a video screen. The exhibit also pays homage to the 231 people who died in the Pentagon and other hijacked flights on 9/11 and in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.

It’s shocking and sobering to think that of the 2,749 dead, only 174 whole bodies were found, in addition to 22,000 body parts. Forty percent remain unidentified, despite the efforts of the New York City Medical Examiner and DNA testing. Even today, pulverized glass and concrete pervade the lungs and psyches of those who managed to escape.

There is hope though. The memorial site is well on its way to being built; concrete has been poured for the two giant recesses in the shadow of the former towers. World Trade Center Building 7 has been reconstructed and is in the process of being occupied. These are success stories in the wake of a national tragedy.