The 9/11 memorial plaza opened its gates at 10 a.m. under tight, airport-style security. Visitors walked among hundreds of white oak trees on the eight-acre site and gazed at the water on the exact spots where the World Trade Center’s twin towers stood.
They also ran their fingers over the names of the 2,977 people killed in the terrorist attacks in New York, at the Pentagon and in Pennsylvania, as well as the six who died in the bombing of the trade center in 1993.
Jim Drzewiecki, a volunteer firefighter from Lancaster, N.Y., said he was shaking as he walked up to the memorial entrance and stood next to the pools.
A rose and an American flag are stuck into the etched name of a firefighter who died in the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center at the National September 11 Memorial in New York Monday, Sept. 12, 2011, on the first day that the 9/11 memorial plaza was opened to the public.
Olivia Norton, left, and Aubrey Finamore, children of Amy Norton and Peter Finamore, whose cousin Kevin Bracken was killed in the 9/11 terrorist attacks, play near stone benches on the first day that the 9/11 memorial plaza was opened to the public at the World Trade Center site in New York, Monday, Sept. 12, 2011.
visitors looks over one of the pools at the 9/11 memorial plaza in the World Trade Center site in New York Monday, Sept. 12, 2011, on the first day that the memorial was opened to the public.
The memorial plaza opened to the families of the victims for the first time on Sunday.
Jelena Watkins, whose brother died at the trade center, came from London for Sunday’s 10th anniversary of the attacks. At the memorial, she and her husband held up their two children so that they could see their uncle’s name. Luka, 5, ran his hands through the water that pools under the names.
“I love it. It was a huge relief to see that it’s actually beautiful,” Watkins said. “It’s the right feel. It’s just so right. It’s so spacious.”
Although thousands of construction workers have come and gone from the site over the years, Monday marked the first time that ordinary Americans without a badge, a press pass or a hard hat were able to walk the grounds where the victims were once entombed in a mountain of smoking rubble.
“For the vast majority of the world, the images that they remember from this site are very difficult. It’s the recovery period, it’s seeing those images of the towers falling. So when they come on now and see this place that’s been transformed into a place of beauty, it’s exciting,” memorial president Joe Daniels said Monday before the memorial opened.
Admission is free, but access is tightly controlled. Visitors need to obtain passes in advance, allowing them to enter at a specified time. No more than about 1,500 at a time will be allowed in.
Visitors must empty their pockets, walk through a metal detector and send their handbags and backpacks through an X-ray machine.
All about: World Trade Center , September 11 attacks and New York
No comments:
Post a Comment