Helen In The Big Apple: 9/11 Memorial, Little Italy and Brooklyn Bridge

Today (Monday) we visited the 9/11 Memorial at the World Trade Center. It's also Presidents' Day so many people had the same idea. Thankfully Helen had pre-booked and we arrived around 10.30 and avoided a long wait at security. The Memorial and Museum are well worth the visit, though quite moving at times. People were quiet and respectful inside, and the exhibits were very well done consisting all sorts of artefacts and multimedia telling the story of how that fateful day unfolded. There were walls with timelines, and a huge room with photographs of all of the people who lost their lives. Hayley and William found it really informative, to see the news programs and read the timeline of events, including actual first responder audio as well as all sorts of donated items too numerous to mention that help tell the story. They were both too young that day, yet have grown up aware of what happened so seeing the museum and being in the same place, as well as seeing the new World Trade Center and the Freedom Tower has helped their curiosity. The museum is excellent and really does tell the whole story including the attack in the car park in 1993. We all agreed it was worth visiting and very tasteful considering what happened and how many people died. The new buildings are fascinating, like the Oculus Railway Terminal and Shopping Centre and the museum being built under the two pools with remains of the tower footings combined with the new buildings.

Oculus Railway Terminal and Shopping Centre entrance.

Freedom Tower

Pools and Waterfalls.

The last steel support removed from ground zero.

Original footings of the Twin Towers. These are steel box sections, cut off by construction workers flush with the ground as part of the clean up.

Survivor Stairwell remains.

Honda CB 750 Motorcycle belonging to one of the firemen who died, he bought the bike just before 9/11 to rebuild. His collegues arranged to have it rebuilt in his honour.

None of the Firemen who arrived on this appliance survived.

The iconic steel supports of the twin towers.

The survivor tree that was carefully nurtured back to full health. I remember we watched a TV programme with the kids about the tree, great to see the tree like this now.

After the memorial and museum we went across the way to the Oculus building, railway terminal and shopping centre, and after a drink caught a Taxi up to the Little Italy part of Manhattan to find somewhere to eat and to buy a very expensive Christmas decoration 😥

We caught a Taxi to Brooklyn Bridge. And all walked together as far as the first suspension support. Helen decided to stay there with William looking at the sights while stood in the sunshine. The temperature was cooler than yesterday rising to about 9 or 10 degrees, quite cold in the wind across the bridge too. By now we are all quite tired after the last few days sightseeing, Mark and Hayley walked the length of the bridge as the sun started to set. The Statue of Liberty could be seen in the distance, as well as the Empire State Building after looking back toward Manhattan from the Brooklyn side.

Helen on a sunny Brooklyn Bridge!

Manhattan Bridge, runs parallel with the older Brooklyn Bridge. As Hayley pointed out the pedestrian part of Brooklyn bridge is made of wood. The pedestrian bridge is above the road section.