Day two in New York, and it’s safe to say that we did not accomplish all that we wanted to! Silly us for thinking we could do two museums in one day eh? NY Rookies.
Our first (and only) stop was the 9/11 Memorial and Museum (after a nice little breakfast at a small coffee house in the Financial District). Both the memorial and museum have been constructed where the twin towers would have stood, and are also now in the shadow of the absolutely huge new Trade Center. A lot of the area around the new site is still under construction, so we had to snake our way around the area to get to the museum – but that did mean we got to see the new building from a lot of angles. From the foot of the very new (not yet completed) One World Trade Center, it looks like a never ending tower, shooting right up into the sky! An amazing yet understandably, controversial building. Now the tallest in the Unites States we believe.
We purchased our museum tickets and took a little while to look at the memorial garden before we went in. Every victims name from each of the towers are cut into the wall, bordering the huge (built into the floor) square waterfalls. Visually, it’s very effective. They put a white rose on the names of the victims who’s birth date is that day, which is a lovely touching thing to do, but also a very sad sight to see.
So we headed into the museum, not really too sure what to expect, but very interested nonetheless. It was so much bigger (and better) than we thought it would be! We like to be very thorough when visiting museums i.e. reading everything and analysing it all also (see our day at the WWII museum), especially when we have a real interest for it – so we ended up spending pretty much a whole day looking at all of the exhibitions. We were in there for 6 hours. The museum needs a whole day really, and deserves that time also.
The main exhibition starts by showing you how the events of the day rolled out, information on the build up of the attack, and then the aftermath. Wreckage, photographs, videos and audio clips from the day are all over the museum – it’s all very sobering and thought provoking.
By the time we got out of the museum, it was gone 7pm – so we went for a quick bite to eat at an Irish Pub nearby and then headed home on the Subway 🙂
So we’ve now come home and re-planned our schedule – so tomorrow we are going to do the Museum of the American Gangster and Ellis Island.. In one day! (Gulp) – Hell, we might even be able to squeeze in the Brooklyn Bridge! (Trying to be optimistic!) 😉
eighteenstates 