Garry
@Gdurfey- I apologize it took me awhile to respond to this and what you said on your first line was my initial thought. I have posted a handful of thread related to 9/11 and I won’t retell it, because it is traumatic rewinding the ordeal over and over again. I just attended last week a concert at the 9/11 museum- there were 3 musicians who were “bonded by this tragedy” and how music, their school community, their professors, their peers, the city helped them cope with what went on (this was the birth of the Jazz program at The Juilliard). They all said, that they remember how their day went and that they can recall it than any other event in their life. We can all relate to that regardless if you’re from this town or out of town.
It took me a good 5 years when I got back to NYC to find the courage to step foot in the museum. One of our most important client lost their life and his company lost 658 employees. I went to his funeral and I was around him, his wife and their young 5 & 2-1/2 year old kids as I was renovating their 2 apartment units into one before and after 9/11. There is an exhibit in the museum called “In Memoriam - Memorial Exhibition”. There are no photo’s and recording allowed. That exhibit is the “void/footprint” of the North Tower. What is there? All the faces of those who lost their lives. There is a central room that is a sanctuary that has video highlights of each and every person that lost their life in the process of the terrorist attack- a quick snippet of their life. Where it becomes challenging is that there is a pedestal that has a search function for each and every person that lost their life. You pickup this ear piece like a hand held phone and you type their name- they say their name like they are talking to you like it was yesterday, then there are photo’s of them with their family, written letters to them from their love ones.
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Once you get passed this exhibit, the “September 11, 2001 Historical Exhibition” doesn’t get any easier- this exhibit is the foot print of where the base of the south tower was. This exhibit recounts what happened the whole day in sequence, aftermath of 9/11, the inception of 2 World Trade Center and birth of the New World Trade Center and moving forward. This exhibit is “overwhelming” is like getting punch and punched and punched over again, but you never hit the floor. A plethora of information is coming at you whether it is visual, moving or auditory. These presentations aren’t spaced like art work in a general museum- they are condensed, compact, chaotic in an organized manner, disorienting, numbing, confusing, surreal, etc.. A lot of graphic scenes that I can’t talk about here. You do have to be in control in how you pace yourself in the museum (if it means taking a respite outside these exhibits into the main hall or up the cafe at the mezzanine level). There are no camera’s and recording device allowed in both south and north tower exhibits. You will feel all sorts of mixed emotions from being overwhelmed, frantic, helplessness, anger, hatred, betrayed, compassion, sympathetic..…..you can fill in the rest. But underneath it all, there is this moment of “silver lining” that was beautiful- that we are resilient and that we can come together as a country in the midst of this great tragedy.
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Having been in the museum 6 consecutive times- it never becomes easy and you have to summon the courage of the lion just like in the “Wizard of Az” to get through it each and every time. You can do this Garry, you have Denise to get you through and I’ll be here certainly to be a good host- you can count on that.
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Arn
PS- they did an outstanding job in capturing the events of 9/11. The architectural experience is in parallel with what took place- you plunged into the darkness in this underground space and you slowly get back up to meander out of the darkness into the light as you reach the top of the museum and out to the natural light of the 9/11 memorial.
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