A Visit to the 9/11 Memorial & Museum

I am in New York for the fifth time since 9/11, and it has been four years since my last visit. On this occasion as well, a stop at the 9/11 Memorial & Museum is a must for me. Every trip to New York is also an opportunity to meet the survivors and first responders I have gotten to know over the years through my research; this time I also meet fellow researcher Adam Fitzgerald, with whom I take the subway from midtown to the World Trade Center and visit the museum.

The Plaza looks very much as I remember it, and it has not changed much over the past four years. However, there are also some significant differences. The performing center north of the Plaza, toward 7 World Trade Center, has opened and has been given the name World Trade Center 6, even though it is not an office building, thus restoring the original numbering. Construction work on World Trade Center 2 has also resumed, although for now all that can be seen is the concrete framework emerging from the base; the only tenant currently expected will be American Express, but that has been enough to restart construction. World Trade Center 5, on the other hand, is still stalled, despite discussions in recent months about partially or entirely converting the structure into residential units, the cost of which is currently prohibitive.

By now I know the museum well. I have already been there three other times, so I know what awaits me once I cross the threshold on the Plaza and go down the escalators, and yet every time, emotionally, it feels like the first, because even though I have heard hundreds of accounts from survivors and first responders, the impact of hearing their stories in their own words is unimaginable. For example, this is the first time I notice that among the photographs of the victims there is Betty Ong, the flight attendant on American Airlines Flight 11, whose desperate words over the phone are one of the most iconic voices of the disaster that was unfolding, as well as a four-year-old girl, Juliana Valentine McCourt, who was traveling on the same plane with her mother. Just another reminder that the terrorists showed no mercy to anyone in their insane and destructive plan.

There are always new things to discover in the museum. I notice that some of the objects I remember are no longer there, such as the jacket of one of the Navy SEALs who carried out the Abbottabad operation; the guard I ask about it explains that the objects on display are changed and moved around to make room for new ones, and he does not even remember seeing it. I also notice the flag that was raised at Ground Zero after the attacks, and I do not remember seeing it during my previous visits. The section dedicated to the mission that killed bin Laden also seems more comprehensive to me, and this time there is also a brick from the compound where the terrorist was hiding.

Thanks to Adam, I also discover an important detail that I did not know about: in the museum there is a room accessible only to the victims' families where the unidentified remains of the victims are kept. We can obviously only look at it from the outside, although the guard we ask to confirm that the room exists is surprised that we know about it.

We leave after spending more than two hours in the museum, but only because we have both been there before; otherwise, the amount of time to spend there would certainly be longer. And after seeing the pain and heroism conveyed by the voices that follow one another in the testimonies preserved at the museum, crossing the museum's threshold on the way out feels like entering another dimension, because life on the Plaza has resumed at full pace and the rest of the city is moving and producing just as it did before 9/11. While the museum commemorates those who died and the courage of those who responded, the rest of the city confirms that the terrorists did not win.