NYC: 9/11 Museum

The last steel column removed from the remains of the Twin Towers

After the high of the One World Observatory, we hit the low of 9/11.  Not only do the 9/11 memorial fountains sink into the earth, the 9/11 museum feels submerged as well.  When you enter, you see the remaining slurry walls of the foundation of the Twin Towers, meant to keep out the Hudson River, as well as the remains of the pylons of the foundation.  After a memorial hall, where you view a wall of faces of the nearly 3,000 people killed by Al Qaeda terrorists, you enter a revolving door into the main exhibit, which takes you minute by minute through the terrorist attacks.

Fire truck crushed by falling debris 

For me, this was a very personal journey.  I experienced 9/11 from the safety of the West Coast.  But I remember vividly taking the kids to the bus stop that morning, blissfully unaware, and finding my neighbor Peggy in near hysteria.  She had turned on the news.  I got my kindergartner on the bus, then rushed the toddler back home and turned on the TV.   It was incomprehensible.

The 9/11 memorial and museum preserves the testimony and artifacts of that day in minute detail.  The most poignant are the phone calls made by victims who weren't aware of their fate, and the loved ones who tried to reach them.

We are not quite twenty years out from September 11, 2001.  Eventually, no one will remember it first hand.  So this museum will have to convey the incredulity and destruction of that day independently.  I think they have achieved that goal.