A trip to New York these days is hardly complete without a visit to the 9/11 Memorial, and it was on our list of places to see, too. Before our visit, we tried to explain to the kids about the events of that day to help them understand why it was so important for us to go and see. In the 'Preview Site', where we collected our visitor passes, we showed them the pictures on the wall that roughly outlined the events of that morning. It may have been a little hard for them to understand, but to us it brought back many memories, and for me I couldn't help but feel a little overwhelmed with emotion... Here we were, at the actual place where the two tall buildings used to stand and that planes crashed into, where they actually crashed to the ground, etc etc. I wondered about the buildings in the immediate area around the site: if they could speak, what stories would they tell us?
But upon entering the actual memorial site, it hardly felt like a place where tragedy had been. There is renewal, quiet (well, apart from the noise of construction that still goes on around the perimeter of the site), growth, the calming sounds of flowing water. It all feels peaceful, hopeful, honoring, ordered, and even in winter it's very, very pretty.
When you visit the memorial, you see the occasional white rose placed beside the name of a person who died that day. It signifies that today is their birthday... Every day, a white rose is placed beside those whose birthday it is. Even now, the thought of this special gesture brings tears to my eyes.
And then there is the new building, towering high above the memorial square, all shiny and new and very, very tall.
I feel so privileged to have had the opportunity to visit this place in person and to see how it has moved forward after such terrible tragedy.
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Following our visit to the World Trade Centre, we took the subway uptown to Soho, where we made our way to the highly recommended Housing Works Bookstore. This turned out to be the discovery of the trip so far. Not only does this place stock hundreds of second-hand books that could pass as new and for just a few dollars, the look and atmosphere of the place is just how any good bookstore should be: oh so bookish! It's the sort of place you'd picture in the movies... Oh, wait, it HAS been used in movies! And weddings and other functions, too.
We spent a good hour or two here and didn't even realise we were hungry for lunch until we left and realised it was 2pm!
It was a late lunch we had at Nom Wah's Tea Parlor in Chinatown. As soon as we exited the subway, we could tell we were in Chinatown just by the smell of grease and deep fry oil. We'd heard Nom Wah's has been around since the 1920s and is very good, so headed there. We weren't disappointed (although admittedly we were starving and could have eaten anything) and all left with full, satisfied tummies.
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