![\"2016-03-30](\"https:\/\/fromabirdseyeview.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/2016-03-30-09.01.50-Small-e1459789881914-150x150.jpg\")
<\/a>There is a quietness about the 9\/11 Museum.\u00a0 You can see the trepidation on everyone’s face<\/strong> as they enter – do we really want to re-live that horrible day?\u00a0 And yet we all file in, bracing ourselves for what we know will be a roller coaster of emotions.\u00a0 The museum allows you to wander through the various exhibitions on your own, you can also download an app that provides information as you walk by each display, or you can buy tickets for a guided tour.\u00a0 We chose\u00a0the tour and were glad we did.\u00a0 Our guide was a young man from New Jersey who had lost neighbors in the terrorist attack<\/strong>, so for him, this was personal.\u00a0 I reflected that we are fortunate in our generation to be guided by such people; future generations will experience it from a more distant perspective.<\/p>\n![\"2016-03-30](\"https:\/\/fromabirdseyeview.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/2016-03-30-09.41.50-Small-e1459786575620-150x150.jpg\")
<\/a>\u00a0 The Last Column<\/strong><\/p><\/div>\n <\/p>\n Our guide first took us to the bottom of the museum, to Foundation Hall<\/strong>, \u00a0where the famous “slurry wall” stands.\u00a0 It was a wall built to hold back the Hudson River, which lapped at the side of the Trade Center when it was built in the mid-60’s.\u00a0 After the attack, when the site was being excavated, the workers were astounded to find that the slurry wall had survived.\u00a0\u00a0 Daniel Libeskind, the architect heading the redevelopment of the site, pushed to keep a portion of the original slurry wall in place.\u00a0 He proclaimed that it was\u00a0a testament to the determination<\/strong> and resilience of a nation;\u00a0a document “as eloquent as the Constitution itself”.\u00a0 Also in Foundation Hall is the “Last Column,”\u00a0<\/strong>a\u00a0<\/strong>36-foot girder that was the last to be removed from the site, marking the end of the recovery effort.\u00a0\u00a0During the excavation it quickly became a makeshift memorial, plastered with Mass cards, rosary beads, flags, photos of missing innocents, and patches from fire and police units.\u00a0\u00a0When it was finally cut down it\u00a0was laid on a flatbed truck,\u00a0draped in black<\/strong>, with an American flag over it, and escorted by first responder\u00a0honor guards to a place of safekeeping.\u00a0 It now stands again in Foundation Hall as an exemplification of our resilience and\u00a0hope.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0 The Dream Bike<\/strong><\/p><\/div>\n There are many displays that feature recovered portions of the buildings – bent beams, the only remaining glass window and the staircase used by many to escape the burning tower. \u00a0But I suspect that the real reason most of us come is to pay tribute to the people<\/strong> that we lost that day.\u00a0 After seeing incredibly massive beams bent and misshapen by the impact of planes and the heat of the fires, it gives new perspective to what the people who were in those structures must have experienced.\u00a0 I still recall, on the afternoon of the attack, one of the news channels interviewing a fireman who had been at the scene.\u00a0 He was understandably shell-shocked and said, “How bad must it have been up there that people thought\u00a0jumping out of a window on the 100th floor was the better<\/em> alternative?”.\u00a0 There is a room called “The Wall of Faces”\u00a0<\/strong>filled with pictures of the victims.\u00a0 It is overwhelming to be in a room, with face after face looking down on you, and realize that we lost all of them in one day.\u00a0 People who set off to work on a gloriously sunny Tuesday morning, kissed a loved one good-bye, and were never seen again.\u00a0 And then there are the first responders’ stories, especially the 343 fire fighters who died trying to save people.\u00a0 One particularly poignant display is of the motorcycle that belonged to Gerard Baptiste<\/strong>, a firefighter with Ladder 9 in\u00a0Lower Manhattan.\u00a0 Two weeks before 9\/11 he bought a broken-down 1979 Honda motorcycle off the street for $100.\u00a0 He had to roll it to the firehouse and the guys gave him endless ribbing about the worthless piece of junk they said would never start.\u00a0 Baptiste died at the Trade Center and shortly afterward the surviving members of his firehouse decided to restore the bike in his honor.\u00a0 With the help of Honda, some motorcycle shops and private donors they were able to make it into what is now known as “The Dream Bike”.\u00a0\u00a0The bike was auctioned, with proceeds going to the education funds of the children of firefighters from Ladder 9 who were lost on 9\/11.\u00a0 The winning\u00a0raffle ticket, selected by Baptiste’s mother<\/strong>, went to a woman from California who donated the bike to the\u00a0museum so everyone would know his story.<\/p>\n The Wall of Faces<\/strong><\/p><\/div>\n Down the hall from the “Wall of Faces” is an alcove, a small space painted black with benches on all four walls.\u00a0 On its walls is a projection of video remembrances of the victims<\/strong>.\u00a0 Each person who died is remembered with a picture and a bit of personal background information.\u00a0 For most of them there is also an audio remembrance from a family member or friend.\u00a0 For me, this was the hardest room to experience, hearing a young woman talk about how much her\u00a0children miss their dad and a father describing how proud he was of his lost son.\u00a0 There was one woman who chose to remember her husband by recounting the story of a Thanksgiving dinner where they argued about who was supposed to have brought the gravy to the table.\u00a0 They argued and both stalked off to the kitchen.\u00a0 She said they imagined that all of the relatives thought they were in there fighting but, in fact, they were kissing.\u00a0 She said “that’s just who we were”.\u00a0<\/strong> Some voices were clearly emotional as they described their loved one, some sounded wistful, and others like the woman with the gravy story, chose to remember a lighter moment.\u00a0 No matter the emotion, the remembrances brought all of the people back to life and thus, made the realization that they had been so tragically taken from their families all the more jarring.\u00a0 Our guide told us that if we see a guide with a tan vest, that person is a family member of a victim.\u00a0 Some, he said, come every day to the museum as a way to work through their grief and talk about their loved one.<\/p>\n I should note that there is a small portion of the museum that describes the rise of Al Qaeda and the planning\u00a0of the 9\/11 attacks.\u00a0 There are\u00a0photos of Osama bin Laden and the 19 hijackers, along with\u00a0video description of how they carried out their plot.\u00a0 The photos of the hijackers are placed very low on the wall, much below eye level, so that one does not have to look at them if you chose to just walk by.\u00a0 After seeing all that I had thus far, my instinct was to give those pictures a swift kick.\u00a0 I questioned why we had to acknowledge them at all in a place of reverence and dedication.\u00a0 But upon further reflection I realized what the museum designers intended – future generations will not recall the events of 9\/11 from personal experience, they will need to learn about it from history books and places like the 9\/11 museum.\u00a0\u00a0 So the “who”, “why” and “how” need to be included to present a complete picture.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0 A remembrance<\/strong><\/p><\/div>\n We finished our tour of the building and went outside to visit the plaza and the two reflecting pools<\/strong> where the names of the victims are carved into the steel that surrounds them.\u00a0 The pools are built on the former foundations of the two towers and are symbolic of the sadness one feels there.\u00a0 One person has described the water falling on four sides into the bottomless pit as the endless tears\u00a0shed over the victims.\u00a0 Perhaps the most touching site I saw all day were the single white roses stuck sporadically into the carvings<\/strong> of names.\u00a0 I had assumed that family members had been there to lay a flower on the name.\u00a0 But in fact, each and every morning the staff of the museum places a white rose on the name of any victim who would have celebrated a birthday that day.\u00a0 Somehow, I found that to be such an elegant gesture and thoughtful beyond words.<\/p>\n The Freedom Tower<\/strong><\/p><\/div>\n We left the museum and went for a very long walk back to our hotel, reflecting on the gamut of emotions<\/strong> we experienced on the tour.\u00a0\u00a0I picked up a copy of USA Today in the lobby; the front page headline blared “US Military Families to Evacuate Turkey” due to possible attacks.\u00a0 Sadly, the beat goes on.\u00a0 But thankfully, so do we.\u00a0 The new One World Trade Center, also known as the Freedom Tower<\/strong>,\u00a0is\u00a0now complete and other buildings are going up where once the ground was but a scar.\u00a0 Would I recommend going to the 9\/11 Museum?\u00a0 I guess that depends on your perspective.\u00a0 One of the guest services workers at our hotel said he couldn’t go – that\u00a0it is still too soon.\u00a0 For me, it was well worth the visit; it is a place where we can reflect, mourn and vow to move forward.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Suzanne Sparrow Watson There is a quietness about the 9\/11 Museum.\u00a0 You can see the trepidation on everyone’s face as they enter – do we really want to re-live that horrible day?\u00a0 And yet we all file in, bracing … read more![\"The](\"https:\/\/fromabirdseyeview.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/motorcycle-150x150.jpg\")
<\/a>![\"The](\"https:\/\/fromabirdseyeview.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/Wall-of-Faces-150x150.jpg\")
<\/a>![\"Someone's](\"https:\/\/fromabirdseyeview.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/2016-03-30-12.05.25-Small-e1459786615284-150x150.jpg\")
<\/a>![\"The](\"https:\/\/fromabirdseyeview.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/2016-03-30-09.00.11-Small-e1459786545277-150x150.jpg\")
<\/a>