The Manhattan skyline is surely one of the most impressive in the
world. Although I have never seen it, I have visited it many times,
although the most recent was as long ago as 6 weeks before an event
which changed the world for ever. During that trip, I visited a
restaurant in the World Trade Centre for a meeting. As terror struck
on that fatal day, I could remember the acoustics of the lobby area,
the space between the towers, and the stomach lurching lifts to the
heights of one of the most magnificent modern day engineering
achievements.
The American Foundation of the Blind's annual leadership conference
took me back to New York last weekend and I decided to visit the 9.11
memorial. I actually don't usually "do" memorials, as I find them
rather sinister and sterile reminders of an event, so my expectations
were set at a low point.
Walking from Wall Street toward the site of the twin towers, you can
feel the scale of the city that never sleeps. You don't need to stand
and look up to buildings that actually do scrape the sky to realise
that not only is this an amazing place, it's one of the most crowded
areas of real estate on the planet. Military planes can fly extremely
accurately in order to destroy targets with pin point precision, but
it flexes the mind to imagine piloting passenger planes to their point
of destruction and to achieve this more than once must have taken
exceptional training.
It's a city in constant change, and the rumble of heavy construction
machinery mixed with the complaining of drills as they shape metal in
to ever more daring designs forms an audio backdrop to the stream of
traffic and chatter of folks as they shop and site see. It's hard to
imagine those 90 minutes that changed everything,.
Security is very tight and entering the memorial is as challenging as
moving through an airport. From scans to questions, everything is in
place to make sure ... to make sure of what.....
You don't hear any sugar-sweet music. You don't feel the inevitable
commercialisation which strikes dead any emotion in many memorials as
it's not there. You don't feel pressured to get in, look and get out.
The basis of the memorial is 2 pools in the footprint of the
respective towers with 30 foot cascades disappearing in to bottomless
water; the chaos of falling water disappearing in to calm. Around
each pool you will find carved the thousands of names of those who
died in terror but who are now immortalised in calm reflection.
Indelibly carved, they will not be rubbed out as their lives were on
that day and they will be remembered not least by white roses placed
on inscriptions to remember birthdays and anniversaries, or just to
remember.
The sound of the water will live with me for a long time. Waterfalls
can thunder, echoing the angry effervescence of foam. Like Victoria
Falls, they can seemingly disappear in to mist as they forge with the
air. These cascades almost seemed to sigh like leaves on trees as the
wind gently passes by. They do not deafen conversation or disturb
thought, you can almost hear voices now at peace in their depths.
This could be a place full of the horror that terror brings. It could
be a sensational depiction of the extremes of fear in order to
galvanise the fight against terror. It is simply a reflective and
poignant place for those who now rest in peace and those who need
peace to enable them to rest.
world. Although I have never seen it, I have visited it many times,
although the most recent was as long ago as 6 weeks before an event
which changed the world for ever. During that trip, I visited a
restaurant in the World Trade Centre for a meeting. As terror struck
on that fatal day, I could remember the acoustics of the lobby area,
the space between the towers, and the stomach lurching lifts to the
heights of one of the most magnificent modern day engineering
achievements.
The American Foundation of the Blind's annual leadership conference
took me back to New York last weekend and I decided to visit the 9.11
memorial. I actually don't usually "do" memorials, as I find them
rather sinister and sterile reminders of an event, so my expectations
were set at a low point.
Walking from Wall Street toward the site of the twin towers, you can
feel the scale of the city that never sleeps. You don't need to stand
and look up to buildings that actually do scrape the sky to realise
that not only is this an amazing place, it's one of the most crowded
areas of real estate on the planet. Military planes can fly extremely
accurately in order to destroy targets with pin point precision, but
it flexes the mind to imagine piloting passenger planes to their point
of destruction and to achieve this more than once must have taken
exceptional training.
It's a city in constant change, and the rumble of heavy construction
machinery mixed with the complaining of drills as they shape metal in
to ever more daring designs forms an audio backdrop to the stream of
traffic and chatter of folks as they shop and site see. It's hard to
imagine those 90 minutes that changed everything,.
Security is very tight and entering the memorial is as challenging as
moving through an airport. From scans to questions, everything is in
place to make sure ... to make sure of what.....
You don't hear any sugar-sweet music. You don't feel the inevitable
commercialisation which strikes dead any emotion in many memorials as
it's not there. You don't feel pressured to get in, look and get out.
The basis of the memorial is 2 pools in the footprint of the
respective towers with 30 foot cascades disappearing in to bottomless
water; the chaos of falling water disappearing in to calm. Around
each pool you will find carved the thousands of names of those who
died in terror but who are now immortalised in calm reflection.
Indelibly carved, they will not be rubbed out as their lives were on
that day and they will be remembered not least by white roses placed
on inscriptions to remember birthdays and anniversaries, or just to
remember.
The sound of the water will live with me for a long time. Waterfalls
can thunder, echoing the angry effervescence of foam. Like Victoria
Falls, they can seemingly disappear in to mist as they forge with the
air. These cascades almost seemed to sigh like leaves on trees as the
wind gently passes by. They do not deafen conversation or disturb
thought, you can almost hear voices now at peace in their depths.
This could be a place full of the horror that terror brings. It could
be a sensational depiction of the extremes of fear in order to
galvanise the fight against terror. It is simply a reflective and
poignant place for those who now rest in peace and those who need
peace to enable them to rest.
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