World Trade Center Lights
Do you remember where you were? It’s a question that doesn’t require much recall to answer when someone asks where you were when you first heard the news about September 11th. I was home, eating a late breakfast in my kitchen. Me and my dad were getting a late start to the day… I missed the school bus because I overslept. The night before was the first game of the NFL season for the Denver Broncos and New York Giants; my dad let me stay up late with him to watch Monday Night Football. It was after midnight by the time the game had ended, and I forgot to set my alarm when I crawled in to bed. I was frantic in the morning because I’d missed homeroom and most of first period. Plus, I didn’t like missing any part of any class, especially first period… American History (my favorite subject). Little did I know that I was about to witness American history unfold before me, as I sat in front of the 13″ TV on my kitchen counter, while eating a Quaker Chewy granola bar.
I never made it to school that day. I was glued to the TV all morning, afternoon, and evening. Many people if asked will recant a similar series of events. Well, maybe not the part about missing the school bus, or not hearing about the bus conversation between my friends, but most will say that they spent much of September 11, 2001, near a television or radio to learn as much as possible. It’s hard to find a silver lining about anything that occurred on September 11, but I think it’s fair to say that a renewal of patriotism for our country emerged within all of us that day. That said, it is more than fitting that September 11 will forever be a holiday known as Patriot Day.
The day of remembrance was signed in to law by President Bush on December 18, 2001, and directs that all American Flags, at home and abroad, be flown at half-staff. It also asks that Americans observe a moment of silence at 8:46 AM, the time at which American Airlines Flight 11 crashed in to the North Tower of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.
This year will be the eighth anniversary of 9/11. It’s hard to believe that eight years has passed, as the memory of the events of that day still seem so fresh in our minds. This week preparations in New York are underway for the return of a support column from the Twin Towers. It’s a giant steel beam, 36 feet tall and weighing nearly 60 tons. It has been kept for the last seven years in a hangar at Kennedy Airport, and is being returned to Ground Zero where it will be memorialized in the National September 11 Memorial & Museum. The hangar at Kennedy Airport where the beam spent the last seven years served as a museum of sorts. Visitors of the memorial left firehouse patches, police logos, union stickers, and other types of markings and tributes to the victims of the attacks.
World Trade Center Memorial
Construction of the National September 11 Memorial & Museum at the World Trade Center is currently underway. The Memorial will consist of two massive pools set within the footprints of the Twin Towers, with waterfalls cascading down their sides. The names of the nearly 3,000 individuals who were killed in the September 11 attacks in New York City, Pennsylvania, and at the Pentagon, and the February 1993 World Trade Center bombing will be inscribed around the edges of the Memorial pools. Surrounding the pools will be the green Memorial Plaza, with nearly 400 trees set to be planted. Cobblestones, grass, and flowers will line the ground, and a small clearing called The Memorial Glade provide space for gatherings and ceremonies. Construction of the National September 11 Memorial & Museum at the World Trade Center won’t be complete for about two years.
I’m not sure exactly where I’ll be two years from now. But this year, on the morning of September 11, Patriot Day, I’ll be in the same place I’ve been for the past seven years before: in front of my TV watching the ceremonies, and observing a moment of silence.
Lexi
