# The National September 11 Memorial & Museum


(Translated from the Chinese version with the help of ChatGPT.)

I visited the museum toward the end of last year. The experience hit me so hard that I kept putting off writing about it. Today I went through the photos again, along with some of the articles and videos I had seen before, and finally put some thoughts together. It is still a very heavy feeling.

On September 11, 2001, the attacks happened on a Tuesday morning in the U.S., while it was already nighttime in China. I think it was the next day at school when a classmate told me that the World Trade Center in the U.S. had been bombed. I remember saying, "No way?" I can't remember whether it was at school or at home when I saw the towers burning on the news.

Do you still remember where you were and what you were doing that day?

The National September 11 Memorial & Museum consists of the outdoor Memorial, which is free to visit, and the Museum, which requires an admission ticket.

## The Memorial

The centerpiece of the Memorial is two reflecting pools, located at the footprints of the two fallen World Trade Center towers. The edges of the pools correspond to the outlines of the original buildings. Water cascades down from all four sides into the bottom, then flows into a smaller pool in the center. You can't see the bottom of the central pool.

The official description says:

> This work is called *Reflecting Absence*. Water continuously flows into these voids, but they can never be filled—that is the central idea it is meant to express. The dimensions of the outer pools correspond to "what was lost"—the buildings that once stood there—while the smaller, seemingly bottomless inner pools symbolize the loss itself, something that can never be filled or measured. A smaller, deeper, more mysterious void becomes a metaphor for the inexhaustible nature of grief and emptiness.

{{<figure src="pool.jpg" title="The reflecting pools">}}

The names of the victims are inscribed around the pools. They are arranged next to one another according to relationships they had in life, their companies, and where they were on that day. The Memorial's website has an [example](https://www.911memorial.org/connect/blog/meaningful-adjacencies-richard-barry-ross-and-stacey-leigh-sanders) of a father and his daughter's best friend being placed next to each other. Every day, staff also place a [white rose](https://www.911memorial.org/connect/blog/white-rose-signifies-remembrance-911-victims-birthdays) next to the names of victims whose birthdays fall on that day.

There is also a [Survivor Tree](https://www.911memorial.org/visit/memorial/survivor-tree)—which reminds me of the "Pig That Survived" from the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake in China. It survived in the rubble.

{{<figure src="survivor-tree.jpg" title="The Survivor Tree">}}

Liberty Park, on the south side of the Memorial, sits slightly higher than the plaza, giving you a view over the whole site. It is also home to *The Sphere*, which originally stood in the plaza of the World Trade Center and now stands here in dialogue with the Memorial.

{{<figure src="memorial-overview.jpg" title="Looking down over the Memorial. The new World Trade Center is on the left. It was already getting dark, but the large dark area on the right is the South Tower reflecting pool.">}}

{{<figure src="the-sphere-today.jpg" title="The sculpture today. Scarred but still standing, it has come to symbolize resilience.">}}

{{<figure src="the-sphere-1998.jpg" title="The World Trade Center in 1998. Looking up from the plaza, you can see the iconic tridents. The circular sculpture stood at the center of the plaza.">}}

## The Museum

The museum entrance is at ground level. Once inside, you follow a ramp downward and then simply follow the exhibition in order.

{{<figure src="tridents.jpg" title="Two tridents standing beside the stairs">}}

{{<figure src="830.jpg" title="8:30 a.m. that morning, a beautiful clear day. Sixteen minutes before Flight 11 hit the North Tower (1 WTC, the one with the antenna).">}}

A few numbers:

* Four hijacked planes: two hit the World Trade Center, one hit the Pentagon, and one crashed.
* 19 Al-Qaeda terrorists
* 2,977 people killed that day

{{<figure src="flight-paths.jpg" title="The flight paths of the four hijacked planes. The museum was too dark for me to get a decent photo, so I found this one online.">}}

{{<figure src="view-from-jersey-city.jpg" title="Looking toward Manhattan from Jersey City later that day.">}}

{{<figure src="view-from-jersey-city-1995-9.jpg" title="The same view in September 1995, for comparison.">}}

{{<figure src="sign.jpg" title="A sign introducing the World Trade Center. Made in 1995. Why does it look kind of dirty?">}}

{{<figure src="sign-label.jpg" title="This sign was actually standing next to the World Trade Center that day. It was damaged on 9/11, repaired, and remained in use until 2008.">}}

{{<figure src="stairs.jpg" title="The Survivors' Stairs. Countless people used these stairs to reach safety that day.">}}

{{<figure src="stairs-label.jpg" title="The escalator and surrounding structures beside the stairs were demolished. Most of the visible damage to the stairs today came during the cleanup. The stairs were originally slated for demolition too, but were eventually preserved as a symbol of the path to freedom.">}}

We then continued down the stairs beside the Survivors' Stairs into a hall, where a line from Virgil is written on the wall.

{{<figure src="virgil.jpg" title="\"No day shall erase you from the memory of time.\" Virgil, The Aeneid, Book IX. The letters were made by an artist using steel from the ruins of the World Trade Center. The background consists of 2,983 blue watercolor paintings representing the color of the sky that morning, commemorating the 2,977 victims of 9/11 and the six victims of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.">}}

Quoting such a heavyweight work of Western civilization immediately gives the exhibition several extra layers of cultural depth. But this particular quotation has also drawn criticism from classicists, who have argued that the context is inappropriate and doesn't really fit.

The reason is that, in the original work, these words come right after the poet has finished telling the tragic and bloody story of two warriors who sneak into a sleeping enemy camp at night, slaughter a number of soldiers, and eventually die together. The narrator then steps out of the story to address them with these words.

### The South Tower Exhibition

We next entered the South Tower section, directly beneath the South Tower Memorial pool. The first exhibition was *In Memoriam* (one of the two main areas where photography is prohibited). It displays photographs and personal belongings of all 2,977 victims. In the middle is a small space where short biographies and memories from family and friends are played.

The message is simple but powerful: the victims were ordinary working people, ordinary wage slaves just like the rest of us. This could happen to anyone. It could be you, it could be me.

It hit me way too hard. I was crying my eyes out.

Next to it is a small theater. The line was very long when I visited, so I didn't watch it then. Fortunately, both films are on YouTube.

Before 2 p.m., they show *Boatlift*, a 12-minute documentary about how the maritime community evacuated roughly half a million civilians from Lower Manhattan in about nine hours on 9/11. (All the bridges and tunnels were closed that day.) It was the largest maritime evacuation in history, even larger than Dunkirk, where about 339,000 British and French troops were evacuated over nine days.

I really agree with what the captain says at 10:45:

> I never want to say the word "I should have". If I do it and I fail, I tried. If I do it and I succeed, better for me. And I tell my children the same thing. Never go through life saying you should have. If you want to do something, you do it.

{{<youtube 18lsxFcDrjo>}}

After 2 p.m. they show *The Naudet Brothers film*, and it is really something. The French Naudet brothers were originally making a documentary about firefighters. During what began as an ordinary call, they happened to capture the first plane hitting the World Trade Center (19:52).

They immediately headed toward the World Trade Center and recorded, in real time, firefighters trying to organize a rescue operation, the chaos at the scene, and the sudden collapses of the two towers.

Nobody knew what was happening. Everyone just wanted to help.

A firsthand record like this is priceless.

{{<youtube _Iw-1bOQNIA>}}

There are also some memorial artworks and exhibitions about the construction of the World Trade Center in the South Tower section, but I won't go into them here.

### The North Tower Exhibition

Outside the main historical exhibition are three huge artifacts: the remains of the North Tower antenna, a massive elevator motor, and a damaged fire truck. All of them remind you of the enormity of the disaster.

{{<figure src="ladder-3.jpg" title="A fire truck from Ladder 3, its front end severely damaged. All 11 firefighters from the ladder company were in the North Tower when it collapsed at 10:28 a.m. They all died.">}}

And finally, the main event: the historical exhibition.

This is the other major area where photography is prohibited. The museum does not recommend it for children under ten.

The exhibition is divided into three parts:

#### The Day of the Attacks

There were simply too many things happening at the same time. Organizing the exhibition around the following three threads helped me make some sense of it:

1. The passengers and crew aboard the hijacked planes.
2. The people working in the World Trade Center.
3. The first responders—firefighters, police officers, and others.

The exhibition tells the stories of many individuals. One that stayed with me was police officer Moira Smith. There is a famous photograph of her (a little too graphic to include here) helping a blood-covered survivor to the sidewalk and waiting for an ambulance with him. She then turned around and rushed back into the South Tower to help more people, eventually dying when the tower collapsed.

Welles Remy Crowther worked in the South Tower. After the plane hit, he covered his mouth and nose with his red bandana and used the skills he had learned as a volunteer firefighter to lead more than a dozen people to safety. Each time he brought survivors to firefighters, he went back again, returning to the area where injured people were gathered to help the next group. He made three such trips before the South Tower collapsed, killing him.

{{<figure src="fdny.jpg" title="Firefighter Mike Kehoe of Engine 28, photographed inside the North Tower stairwell. Even as the stairwell grew hotter, everyone moved down in an orderly fashion, keeping to the right. The left side was left open for rescuers and injured people. One survivor said: \"They were going up to their death. And I was walking down to live.\" Mike himself survived! This photograph left a deep impression on me, so I found an image online.">}}

The timeline:

* **8:46 a.m. — American Airlines Flight 11 hits the North Tower**

  * The CTO of Akamai was on board. He did not survive.
  * Seth MacFarlane, creator of *Family Guy*, was also supposed to be on the flight. He missed it because he was hungover after drinking the night before and because his travel agent had given him the wrong departure time. He narrowly escaped death.
  * The plane tore a huge hole in the exterior of the tower. Along the lower edge, you can vaguely see a woman waving (the "Waving Woman"). She kept waving until the North Tower collapsed. 😭
  * One small section of the exhibition displays photographs of some of the people who, trapped by smoke and intense heat, chose to jump from the tower. The museum projects the photographs high above the visitors, making you look upward and partially recreating the perspective of that moment.

* **9:03 a.m. — United Airlines Flight 175 hits the South Tower**

  * The crew of Flight 175 reported to air traffic control that, while departing Boston, they had heard someone aboard American Airlines Flight 11 say, "Everyone, stay in your seats!" over the radio ([video](https://youtu.be/eDOxhrqw5Tk?si=8hF01zO9ayMIvWlB&t=1396)). The hijacker was apparently trying to address the passengers, but accidentally broadcast the message to other aircraft and air traffic control as well.

* **9:37 a.m. — American Airlines Flight 77 hits the Pentagon**

* **9:59 a.m. — The South Tower collapses**

  * [This video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7h4ckobkwSg&t=268s) explains why the South Tower, despite being hit later, collapsed first: the impact occurred lower down, where the damaged steel structure was exposed to intense heat and lost strength; the impact was also farther toward the outside of the building, damaging more of the supporting structure. The video also debunks the controlled-demolition conspiracy theory. If explosives had been planted beforehand, wouldn't the impact and explosion of the plane have triggered them? I'd never thought of that argument before, but I found it quite convincing.

* **10:03 a.m. — Hijacked United Airlines Flight 93 crashes**

  * I feel a little ashamed that I knew so little about the story of Flight 93 before. Their story deserves to be remembered by many more people.

    Four planes were hijacked but only three hit their targets; the fourth crashed into a field. Everyone on board—passengers and crew—was killed, but no one on the ground was. It was a failure for the terrorists, and a victory for the passengers and crew!

    Flight 93 was the last of the four planes to take off. Passengers and crew made multiple phone calls to people on the ground. They already knew what had happened to the other three planes, and they had figured out what was likely going to happen to them. But they decided to fight the hijackers and try to take back control of the plane.

    Knowing they probably could not win, they fought anyway. This is the very best of humanity.

    [This video](https://youtu.be/eDOxhrqw5Tk) reconstructs the timeline if you're interested.

  * Passenger Lauren Grandcolas, who was three months pregnant, left a [voicemail for her husband](https://youtu.be/3G9m_idRHM8?si=VjM7tr9Q0zf3h7rh&t=4341) that breaks my heart:

> I'm... um... comfortable and I'm OK, for now.

That "um" sounds almost like "I'm uncomfortable."

She normally wasn't someone who got up early to catch a flight, but that morning she did something completely out of character and [got up early](https://youtu.be/3G9m_idRHM8?t=4122). She wasn't originally supposed to be on Flight 93. But the flight was relatively empty, and she happened to already be at the airport, so a ground staff member asked whether she wanted to take this flight, which was about 80 minutes earlier. She said yes.

A cruel twist of fate.

* **10:28 a.m. — The North Tower collapses**

#### Before 9/11

This section covers the construction of the World Trade Center, the 1993 World Trade Center parking garage bombing, which killed six adults (including a pregnant woman), the rise of Al-Qaeda, the terrorists coming to the United States for flight training, and even footage of the terrorists passing through airport security on the morning of the attacks.

#### After 9/11

The rescue, recovery, and cleanup operation lasted nearly nine months, with the main cleanup officially ending in late May 2002. In September, the damaged section of the Pentagon was rebuilt and completed.

The object that left the strongest impression on me in this section was a huge composite recovered during the cleanup—a mass of different materials, including steel, flooring, walls, carpeting, furniture, and so on, fused together by the extreme heat. Nobody could really tell what exactly was inside it anymore. It made you imagine what kind of hell the site must have been that day.

## Thoughts and Reflections

It is an exhibition that overwhelms you with information.

It could be you, it could be me.

There are so many other stories that I haven't even mentioned (Laisky's [review of a book on 9/11](https://blog.laisky.com/p/911/) has many more): the bizarre person who wasn't at Ground Zero but pretended to be a survivor, a man who gave up his chance to escape so he could stay with a friend who couldn't move on his own, first responders who later developed cancer after exposure to toxic substances at the site...

9/11 changed so many lives, and the world, forever.

There is also a 9/11 memorial sculpture at Kensico Dam Plaza, the Westchester County memorial. Around the base are the names of the victims and messages from their families. Many of them are deeply moving.

{{<figure src="the-rising.jpg" title="The Rising">}}

> To the world you were one person, but to us you were the world.

> An ordinary man who lived an extraordinary life.

> You have touched the lives of so many and we are so much richer for your presence with us.

> You were murdered by few, grieved by many, remembered by the world.

Life is fragile.

Live well.

"天地不仁" — Heaven and Earth are impartial.

May the dead rest in peace.