Posted by Sarah M. on November 14, 2001 at 16:25:45:
Dear all,
I thought you might be interested in knowing I went to Ground Zero with my folks on Friday. They were visiting en route from Frankfurt to Denver -- yes, via JFK.
Anyway, we went Friday early afternoon. You exit at the Fulton Street exit from the Lexington Ave. subway and there it is. You see it right in front of you and boy do you smell it!! What we saw were the remains of I don't know which buildings, but the nearest one was a burned-out shell, completely black. Also, I am quite certain that we were at the location of where a video was shot of the second plane flying into the South Tower -- the angle, the buildings all registered in my mind quite strongly (as I had watched that one over and over in disbelief) and I felt like ducking while standing there.
I've never seen a burned building so completely burned through. And the air smelled of a hard-to-describe mixture of burned metal and other things, I really can't describe it but it was pungent.
From there, we walked south to try to go all the way around. At one spot we could see we were parallel with where I think the North Tower stood, but as there was fencing with a net all around, we couldn't see much. It all looked more like a construction zone -- well, a de-construction zone actually. One huge crain was dropping a wrecking balls on the top of the core nub of one building, which was more or less fused together. As the ball fell onto the building, a brown cloud emerged from the ruins. On officer explained to us, this is smoke from continuous burning. There was a LOT of dust and stuff in the air at all times, but each time they removed something or smashed something, they opened up the core of what is about 600-1000 degrees F still, and when air got in it smoked.
As we continued south, along Broadway past Wall Street, the air was still acrid. The buildings seem to exude the smell. We then moved west toward the Hudson River and got to a point where we could more easily see the remaining wall of one of the Towers. I had seen a much taller wall piece from across the river some weeks ago while driving south on I-95 and it was a stupendous site. This was smaller but still riveting. The way the sun shone through the windows...
At the eastern edge of the complex we found a small memorial place overflowing with teddy bears, which more than flowers seems to be the symbol of "RIP" from friends and families. And of course there were pictures... A bit further up, we came to the west-facing entrance of the atrium. This opens out to a courtyard and several buildings still standing but now empty and being cleaned. The eastern-most building (not sure of the numbers) was missing much of it's corner, and from there we could see another building with an open gash from top to near-bottom down the north-facing wall (facing where the towers had stood). The atrium is the beautiful arching glass structure you have probably seen in photos, as it opened out towards the Hudson River with the two Towers behind it. Very tall, arching, clear glass atrium -- very beautiful. Inside had been shops, cafes, etc. including one where I had my leaving party when I left PwC in March. On Friday, I could see where I sat having drinks with my friends, but now above and beyond was shredded metal and open sky and ruination.
The smell wasn't there on that side, for some reason it was worst in the Financial Center. Probably because of the wind. Lots of people were wearing masks because the air was still thick on all sides. On the west side, we were not allowed to take pictures; this was probably the closest to the Twin Towers as one could get and it was still a crime scene, so no pictures. The crime scene of the murder of nearly 5,000.
And the sun was setting immediately behind the Statue of Liberty behind us.
I'm so glad I finally went. I wish I had gone a month ago, it might have still looked more "impressive" and I would have been able to see more. By the way, we were amongst hundreds walking their way around the area, in pilgimage as we were...
Cheers,
Sarah M.