World Trade Center - Ground Zero, NYC

Our day began with a double header tour of the 9/11 Memorial and the 9/11 Museum led by Expert Tour Guide Extraordinaire, Lee Winters. The memorial, a beautiful tribute and memory honoring the 2,983 people killed in the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 at the WTC, in Shanksvillle, the Pentagon as well as those in the 1993 bombing of the WTC.

Lee’s tour taught the 25 of us on today’s tour, new terms that we will never forget. His tours are designed to help those with “memory” of that day to continue to process feelings as well as to provide an accurate “history” in a way that provides the important facts and concepts for those that did not know of those infamous events (i.e., those too young to remember).

When the WTC was first built to be the financial center of the World (1966-71), people commented on what they looked like ... a box a staples? One quote called it "the boxes that the Empire State Building and the Chrysler Building came in." Over the next 30 years we grew to love an admire these beautiful structures that represented globalization and America, our prosperity as we soared to the sky.

Today, we learned about the “Reflecting Absence”, the design and execution built into the memorial to evoke deep thought and emotion. We also learned about the incredible thoughtfulness of listing the names in “Meaningful Adjacencies” to ensure closeness of names that mattered most to those that perished (with so many interesting examples given). Next was the “Survivor Tree” and the “Memorial Glade”. We learned about those “Lingering Effects” that have killed more people post 9/11 than on 9/11 from the related diseases. We learned about the availability of the “World Trade Compensation Fund” and “World Trade Center Health Program”, of which many victims still are unaware. We learned the story of the “Survivors’ Stairs” displayed and its meaning, “Foundation Hall” and the slurry walls, “Memorial Hall” & “In Memoriam Photos & Bios”, the permanent and temporary “Exhibition Space”, “The Collection”, and the “Special Gallery”. Lastly, we learned about “Authenticity of the Place”, which is key to ensure that over time memories do not cloud the facts of this tragedy in our minds. THANK YOU LEE.Read more