Although that feeling did stick with me during several parts of the visit - the melodramatic music on the audio tour didn't help - I realized there is a point to the center, to the plans for the new World Trade Center buildings and memorial. It is to make sure that no one will forget what happened that September, over eight years ago, when two planes hit the Twin Towers and killed 2,749 people. It seems like the meaning of that day can be distorted by war and xenophobia. However, the center did a great job of sticking to what was pure, inspirational and literal: keeping the memory of those who died alive.
Wednesday was rainy, and my 14 classmates and I splashed through the streets to reach the World Financial Center. Looking through the windows towards Ground Zero, we listened to an audio tour given by a father who lost his son on 9/11, a firefighter. After hearing that only 174 whole bodies were recovered from the wreckage, and that it only took 10 seconds for one 110-story building to fall, the damp, disordered construction site was truly impacting. It was the most emotional and disturbing field trip I have ever been on, but also one of the most important.
"Sept. 12 was the worst day, because Sept. 11 we still had hope," said a woman on the audio tour whose husband was never recovered. After our return to the center, we saw images and video of what we had merely heard about. A collage of hundreds of "Missing" signs was plastered on one side of the room. Videos of the WTC before 9/11, and then the devastation of that day in 2001, play again and again on flatscreen TVs on the other side.
After absorbing gruesome photos of the wounded, and items retrieved from the catastrophe (including a piece of one of the jetliners), we went downstairs to hear a truly emotional speech. Tracy Gazzani, a volunteer docent, spoke about the loss of her 24-year-old son Terri, who worked on the 104th floor of the North Tower. "He was cut off from all exits," said Gazzani. "Terri was never recovered." She spoke about the process of grief and why she decided to volunteer for the tribute center. "It's my way of giving back, because people from all over the world came to help us. 9/11 was like dropping a pebble onto a piece of glass and having it spider out. It affected so many people."
When the tour was over, I walked to the World Trade Center subway stop, which has never changed its name even though the buildings are gone. I realize now how important this is, because sometimes a name is all we need to remember something so vast and tragic.
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