National September 11th Memorial & Museum

We got up early in the morning to take the subway down to the World Trade Center site. We go out of the subway station and high above is the new WTC1 also known as the Freedom Tower.

We made our way to the site of the old WTC and the September 11th museum. I was so glad I bought my tickets online before. The line for tickets was very long. We could walk right in and didn’t have to wait in line. (Hint, if you are planning on going here, buy in advance!)

The first thing we did was watch the video on 9/11. It was of course very

emotional and showed a lot of the footage we have seen hundreds of times before. After that we headed downstairs to the exhibits. All around was twisted beams from the original WTC. It is amazing what hot fire and extreme force did to these massive metal beams.

One of the first things you see is a map with the flight paths of all 4 planes from that fateful day. I loved this map, but I’m fascinated by anything dealing with air travel. 

With this Museum, you are always walking downstairs, going deeper and deeper into the ground. It is an interesting concept. It is built between bases of the two towers that fell. You can see the remaining walls and the bolts and metal that went into the base.  They have a stairwell from one of the towers which is called Survivors Stairwell.

In the ground, you can see the box column remnants.

In one room, you can see things recovered from the site including the radio antenna and an elevator gear with all the cables sheared off. The famous Ladder 3 fire truck that was mostly crushed as well as cop car and ambulances from the scene. Just amazing.

One room had pictures of all the people who died that day. It was floor to ceiling full of pictures. It really hits you seeing all these smiling faces who are no longer with us. From these rooms are other smaller rooms where you can watch videos and hear audio from the day. The one that hit me was the one flight attendant calling her husband. It made me cry hearing her last words to her husband and telling him to tell the kids she loved them. It is really heartbreaking!

Of the 40,000 window panes in the WTC, only one survived fully intact. It came from the 82nd floor of the South tower.  How strange is that?

They had displays from the other two crash sites at the Pentagon and the field in Pennsylvania. The had items recovered from the passengers from those planes including cute little girl’s clothes from an innocent child who perished. Needless to say, I teared up a lot.

After touring the exhibits, which there is a lot to see, we walked outside to view the memorial water fountains. I think it is a very neat design memorial.

It was a very emotional morning.