GROUND ZERO

Manhattan, New York, USA

New York now is synonymous with Ground Zero. But it wasn't always like that..

Before September 11th, 2001 going to Battery Park was the place to go to see the Trade Center Buildings.

And the sign posts that were in place then, are still in place. It was very strange to be on the subway and still see the directions to The World Trade Center..

And these comprised of 7 buildings, 5 that surrounded the two largest towers in New York. The Twin Towers.The area set aside for these buildings was 16 acres.with a 5 acre central area or the Twin Towers. Huge hey?

The Twin towers were huge! They were 110 storeys high and could be seen 4 miles away in all directions. Definitely the largest and tallest buildings in NY! (Now the Statue of Liberty is, one again!)

When these 7 buildings were built on reclaimed land from the Hudson River in 1970 (and opened in 1973) there was a 47 storey office building, two 9 storey office buildings, an 8 storey US Customs office and a 22 storey hotel as well as the prominent Twin Towers.

Each day 90,000 tourists and visitors went through these buildings. There were 50,000 people employed in the Twin Towers.

On that fateful and tragic day, now called 9/11 3000 people lost their lives.

The devestation was massive.

When we walked through the area all we saw was a huge mass of dirt, machines, people working, and havoc. IT still looks like a disaster zone.And such a massive area.

I didn't know what to expect when we arrived there. In fact it looked more like an industrial area. But the security gave the area away.There were police everywhere! The whole section is partitioned off.The whole 5 acres. On four sides it had hessian like curtains so you couldn't even see in.

One area was open to view and that was only because they were working inside the area. The were still carefully cleaning up the area 6 years later. And still finding body parts as well we were told.

We ended up standing on some planter boxes to see inside the area.

All disruption and chaos..

We eventually realised there was a walking tour avaliable, with all tour guides being able to retell personal stories (a requirement of all the 9/11 to our guides) and a museum that had all the faces of the victims posted on the walls.

It was very sad thinking about all the victims of this tragedy..and the stories that were told were so poignant, both of the heroes and of the families who lost their loved ones.

We've all heard the stories, and see the news, but to be there was really powerful in a sense the loss that was felt there..and the ditintigration of so many bodies..people, lives..and not only of the victims, but of their families too.

To think, of the 3000 victims declared dead, only around 250 bodies were recovered...