I visited the 9/11 Memorial on Sept. 2 over Labor Day weekend. Entry requires a reservation in advance to get a complimentary visitor pass.
The online procedure was simple and quick. About a month before, I went to the 9/11 Memorial website and clicked on the date I wanted. Group visits for 16 or more are handled by email at [email protected] or by phone at (212) 266-5200.
A separate system has been created for victims’ families to facilitate special access.
Passes are issued every half hour, on a timed reservation system, from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. daily through Oct. 8 with the last entry at 7 p.m. From Oct. 9 to Dec. 31, hours are 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., with the last entry at 5 p.m. Once inside the memorial site, visitors can stay as long as they like.
I clicked on the time I wanted, and a visitor pass was issued in my name with time and date printed it, one of 4.5 million passes issued since the 9/11 Memorial opened a year ago.
Instructions on how to get to the site by subway, bus, ferry or car, a map of nearby parking garages and a reminder to bring a photo ID were included on the pass.
Entry to the site is at the intersection of Albany and Greenwich streets. A friendly cop pointed the way when I found myself lost in the maze of downtown streets.
The entrance resembled a scene at a TSA checkpoint, with long lines of people snaking around ropes in a dizzying pattern, but the lines moved quickly and everyone was patient and quiet.
At three different times, my ID was checked, as was my visitor pass. Once inside a small building, my backpack went through a security scanner, but I did not have to remove my shoes or jacket or give up my water bottle.
The 9/11 Memorial occupies half of the 16-acre former World Trade Center complex.
The heart of the memorial are the two enormous waterfalls and the massive twin reflecting pools, each about an acre in size, set within the footprints of the original twin towers.
The 2,983 names of the men, women and children killed in the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and Feb. 26, 1993, are inscribed on bronze panels surrounding the north and south pools.
I’m not sure what I was expecting. What I saw were hundreds of people milling about the Memorial Plaza, seated on benches under the canopy of 400 swamp white oak trees, standing at the pools and reading and touching names.
Despite the numbers, there was no jostling, pushing or loud voices. The atmosphere and setting were respectful and quietly reverent.
The names are stencil-cut into the panels, which enables visitors to see through the cuts to the water beyond and to create paper impressions or rubbings of individual names.
Every name has a code containing N for the north pool or S for the south pool, followed by a panel number that locates it on one of the pools.
Visitors can type in names at the kiosks on the plaza to find the exact location.
Two men standing near me were in tears. It was their first visit, and they had located the name of a buddy who had died in the south tower.
On a nearby bench, I saw a woman comforting a child. Vignettes like that were playing out all around me.
I found the Survivor Tree, the Callery pear that had sustained extensive damage with burned branches, snapped routes and a blackened trunk.
Workers at the site discovered its charred remnants in the still-smoldering rubble about a month after the attacks.
Skilled gardeners from the New York City Department of Parks & Recreation nursed the 8-foot tree back to health at Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx.
The tree was returned to the memorial site in December 2010. Today it stands 30 feet tall, a symbol of survival and renewal.
Just beyond the twin pools stands the yet-to-be-completed 9/11 Memorial Museum, a large pavilion with a glass atrium that already houses two enormous tridents, artifacts from the steel facade of the original north tower.
Now that the funding dispute that had halted construction of the museum has been resolved, completion should take about a year.
Once completed, the 110,000 square feet of exhibit space will tell the story of 9/11 through narratives, displays, films and a soundscape of people— survivors, witnesses and those who lost loved ones — recalling that day of tragedy and loss in multiple languages.
As I left the site two hours later, I glanced up at the 104-story skyscraper under construction on the site of the original 6 World Trade Center.
Officially named One World Trade Center but popularly known as Freedom Tower, it is the lead building in the new World Trade Center complex. When completed in 2013, it will be the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere and the third-tallest in the world.
Its spire reaches a symbolic 1,776 feet, recounting the year America declared its independence.
How fitting.
Follow Gay Nagle Myers on Twitter @gnmtravelweekly.