9/11 Memorial and Museum

The day began with the breakfast buffet at the hotel-- remember we have a $75 credit in the "restaurant" which is not really a restaurant, but a burger/sandwich area.  Anyway, their buffet included juice, scrambled eggs, potatoes, strange sausage, pastries, bagels, fruit and coffee or tea.  Very complete and adequate for a cost of $28 per person.  A little outrageous, but heck, we had a credit, so why not!

Our plan for the day was to go to the 9/11 memorial and museum and if we could figure out how to get there, Wall Street's charging Bull and little girl display.

We got a taxi, not having a clue how to get to the museum/memorial via subway.  Taxi drivers in New York deserve hazardous duty pay--  (I've watched the Cash Cab, on t.v. and he never gets into the crushing traffic jams that seem to occur every intersection-- and everything seems to be under construction as well)   We got there after a very slow ride of about 30-40 minutes.  He dropped us off across the street and explained how to get there, kinda-- his English and mine aren't exactly the same.  We did discover that cash is not needed anywhere in NYC-- EVERYONE takes credit cards  (well, maybe not the pedicab driver or homeless folks, but everyone else)  Cabs have a scanner in the back for payments.

The first stop was the memorial which is a huge hole in the ground surrounded by marble with the names of the victims etched around the perimeter.

 It isn't really a fountain, I think of a fountain as a place where water spurts up-- here water was cascading down into the hole and flowing up-- a waterfall on the 4 sides of the big hole.  There are two of these memorials- one for each tower.

By chance I noticed a name that had Pike as a middle name- none with Pike as a last name.  We found this gentleman's picture when we went inside to see the museum

The memorial is a very solemn place and the visitors seem quite subdued.

We had bought tickets to the museum online (via credit card) and had our receipt on the phone.  We skipped the line- which wasn't that long, and were in.

Not sure what I was expecting, but it was focused on the physical items from the towers and on the people who lost their lives.

metal brace from tower

We saw a concrete stairway which was in pristine condition at the top and looked rather melted at the bottom-- all together 20-30 feet tall.  We were discussing the damage at the bottom when a docent came over to tell us that this stairway was an outside fire escape and let thousands escape before the towers collapsed.  He said that the melted damage to the bottom part of the stairs happened in the recovery phrase not in the actual attack.  He also let us know that over 15,000 people escaped the towers and 2,977 died in the attack.  I saw written on a sign that over 400 NYC street locations have been named for victims of the attack.  I guess I didn't realize that that many people who were in one of the towers survived.   There was an area with names, pictures and biographical information randomly presented of those who died in the attack.   
 A large American flag was on one wall entirely made up of the pictures of the victims

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A partially melted firetruck was on display as were twisted beams and footings for the supports of the buildings

We watched a short film about the re-building of Freedom Tower which I'm sure would have appealed to an engineer or constructions person-- I didn't get too much out of it.  The most haunting portion of the museum were the audio files which ran constantly containing the words and voices of people in the tower phoning their loved ones telling them what was happening. 

Also bagpipe music was subtly played in various parts of the museum.  Several other videos were available but the entire experience was overwhelming.  A person needs to take a break -- it can't be rushed through in several hours.  I'm sure we didn't see it all, but it was enough-- you might say it was too much.  Granted this is a NEW YORK thing which we experienced vicariously via t.v.,  but they lived it.

We left the museum and headed toward Wall Street to see the "charging bull" etc.  After getting turned around (not really lost) a couple of times  we made it and it was really disappointing. 

There were  probably 40-50 obnoxious tourists there before us and we could hardly see the bull-- which is quite large.  Several were being more than obnoxious, but downright crude.  Our niece Kinz had mentioned the addition of another statue to the area, a little girl.  She mentioned that on national Women's Day- which I wasn't aware of at all, but has been since she has been there, the little girl was added.  If you could see it in its entirity (without all the obnoxious people grabbing at the bull)  the bull is charging, showing the strength of the country's financial system and the little girl is standing facing the bull with arms on hips glaring him down-- representing the strength of women. 

I'd love to see it without the mass of humanity who were there at that point.















We got a taxi and went back toward the hotel.  Looking for a good place to have lunch, we happened upon Lindy's-- seemingly a landmark place.  Mostly very expensive sandwiches, both hot and cold, and some hot things like fish and chips, etc.  I had a chicken salad sandwich and although I was really hungry, could only eat half of it.  The sandwich was tasty and approx 6-7 inches tall- had trouble getting it in my mouth. ($16.95)

I asked about the restroom and was told "down the stairs" over there.  I had been walking for 2 days straight and my trick knee was giving me a bit of trouble.  I walked over to where the stairs went down-- it was way steep, dark and the hand rails were wobbly and decided I could wait.

We walked to the hotel and were able to get into our room without any trouble! Thank you very much and took a nap.  We knew Kinz wasn't going to see us this evening because, poor baby, she had other out of state company coming to stay with her.  She's been way too popular lately, anyway I hope we didn't cause her any inconvenience.  We went out looking for supper- although after our huge late lunch we weren't really very hungry.  We opted for sweets.  I had baklava and Nick had an apple pastry.  His was better than mine.  They poured syrup over the baklava and it just became gaggy sweet-- should have left it alone.

Went back to our room- repacked our luggage for leaving early on Friday morning and went to bed.