This is the kind of post that you would prefer not having to write about. After all, I guess nobody would like to have to remember a tragic day such as September 11th.
However, it is fundamentally important to understand what happened this day in New York.
And know how September 11th changed our lives for good in the way that we keep fighting for nothing like this happens again in the future. Visiting this memorial makes us understand the impact of 9/11 in our lives and understand how New Yorkers became more resilient afterward.
So, we have decided to visit the National September 11th Memorial Museum on September 17th in 2018, in our first visit to New York. We have been to the top of the One World Observatory- World Trade Center at that same day. But I can talk about it in another post.
We knew it would be emotional, but we weren’t prepared for the rollercoaster of mixed emotions that we feel as soon as we step inside this museum.
The atmosphere is different from anywhere I have been to, and only the ones who have visited it maybe would understand it better.
It’s safe to say that I never felt like this before. It’s heavy, emotional, and touchy especially because it’s located at the exact location where the twin towers used to be, of course.
At the same time, it’s proof that human beings can rebuild strength after facing the hardest situations in life.
Our first contact with a walk at the Memorial also known as Ground Zero was completed in 201, and the waterfalls that represent the World Trade Center’s two towers with all names of people that lost their lives in 9/11.
The museum was open in 2014, and it’s the type of visit that you wouldn’t expect to have too many photos or videos made, for obvious reasons.
Visitors tend to be quite quiet when inside there too. The ticket fee and funds help to keep it running, as well as there are several projects there for helping families that lost their loved ones in this tragic event.
Most of the museum content and memorabilia are underneath. And walking around it gives us an idea of the scale of the damage done in the area.
What you see with naked eyes is a timeline of the day itself, with photos and voices of people that were present in New York that day.
The silence is constantly. I appreciate the fact the visitors respected the privacy and the memories of all people involved in the event. Even the children around understood it. It’s fascinating.
The first impressive moment is our first contact with the last column that was recovered from the site at the time and it’s placed straight in the museums’ entrance.
And also, the slurry wall segment that was constructed in 1966 to prevent the water from the Hudson to flood the site and that believe or not, part of this was preserved when the twin towers went down.
There is also a block of step stairs that survived the bombing event and it is also one of the places that people used to escape from the building that day.
As I said before, it’s going to be 20th years in 2021 since this tragic event happened and we just feel like it was yesterday when you visit the museum.
Another pretty emotional moment for me was checking all memorabilia dedicated to the FDNY members that survived, helped in the rescue of survivors, and of course, died in 9/11. This museum is about those people.
I wish I could explain the feeling of walking through that museum. It’s upsetting, but it has to be done if you are in New York. It’s a way to keep alive the memory of all affected by this event that certainly has changed the lives of many of us.
It’s such a wonderful memorial but so eerie and sad. The wall with the posters of the missing family members still gets me everything I think about it x