On our recent trip to New York City, Sue and I visited the 9/11 Memorial on the site of the fallen World Trade Center towers.   Click on the thumbnails to view the images full-size.

The view from Rector Street, as you walk from Wall Street to the visitor entrance at Greenwich and Albany Streets.  The spires of Trinity Church are seen in the foreground.  WTC 1 (on the left) and WTC 4 are the tallest towers currently under construction.

Visitors to the memorial must make reservations and print out passes in advance.  We arrived 25 minutes before our scheduled entry time, so we stopped at nearby O’Hara’s Pub for a cold one.

Along Greenwich Street, the image of WTC 1 is reflected in the west side of WTC 4.

After passing several security checkpoints and an airport scanner (had to remove my hat and belt but not my shoes), we eventually arrived at the plaza area of the memorial.  Looking up, you see WTC 1 on the left, WTC 7 just behind it on the right.

Beautiful skies that day, much like those of September 11, 2001.

The plaza has a more subdued security presence, but officers are easy to spot if you need one.  The prominent features of the plaza are the museum (still under construction) and the pools where the twin towers stood.  For this photo I faced the south pool, with the museum (not visible) to my left and the north pool to my back. ….. ….. ….. ….. ….. ….. ….. ….. …..

The names of those who died in the attacks are inscribed on top of 42-inch-high parapets surrounding each pool.  This corner of the south pool lists those who died at the attack on the Pentagon.

As you approach the north pool, the first inscription you see is “Deanna Lynn Galante and Her Unborn Child.”

Sheets of water quietly cascade down the steep sides of the pools.  I saw only perpetually falling bricks, steel and people.

There is a giant pit in the center of each pool.  It looks like a drain.  Thousands of lives, going down the drain, on and on, for as long as you can stand to watch.

Where I stood, I could not see to the bottom of the pit.  My sense is that the pit must lead to hell, if there were such a thing.

This woman’s hair cascaded over her head like the water falling into the pool beyond.  I wondered what she was thinking as she stared into this display of nothingness.

I couldn’t wait to leave this place.  While I didn’t expect an uplifting experience, I am angry at the design committee for having approved this shrine to unrelenting despair.  Imagine if a holocaust memorial had a fountain that featured a showerhead, spraying its gas-like mist every minute of the day, every day of the week.  It would be only slightly more appalling and insulting than the hellish drains at the bottom of these pools.

The pools may be a powerful work of art but as a memorial are awful.  I won’t visit again.