WTC - Ground Zero, New York City

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Im what you call the tourist i came to new york in April this year and made sure that Ground zero was the main thing that i saw as even though im not an american i felt the pain and sadness as i remember still to this day clear as day watching the destruction on the news and as it was my 1st trip to new york i wanted to pay my own respects to the site and lay flowers also the work that the builders have achieved is absolutally amazing i can wait to come back next year some point to see Freedom tower built and to see the memorial site. i do advise any tourist to go see ground zero to pay their own respects to the people who lost their lives and to their families and the forces that lost their lives in order to save people it will leave you thinking about that day for the rest of your life GOD REST THE 9/11 VICTIMS

i will be visiting the east coast for the first time in december 2010 and want to pay my respects at what many U.S. citizens call ground zero. After reading the various opinions on this site im more proud than ever to visit this site and call myself a citizen of the United States of America. The very fact that as Americans we can disagree about such a tragic event shows a freedom of speech and opinion that most of the world does not enjoy.

As I sit here and read all these "tips" about Ground Zero, I am totally pissed. As an American it is my right to see Ground Zero. I am coming to NY in December. Yes I am planning to visit Ground Zero in order to pay my respects to those that died AND to those that I know that have family that died there. I am not seeing it as a tourist attraction. Every American in our nation should have the honor of visiting this site in order to appreciate what Americans pay for being who we are. Did I pay? No. But I shed tears for those that were lost, my heart was broken as much as any other American. When you post things about taking cheezy pictures and some *** wanting to take these photos home, you insult the patriotism of those that are American and those that are proud to be Americans. You insult the hearts of those that want to see this site because our world was changed that day too. I will be there. Call me whatevver you want. I am not there as a tourist. I am there as an American.

Such a disaster in 2001. The Americans seem to have let the memory fade a bit. To be fair, the reason it is a building site is that the development of the site has at last started, and it looks as if it will be an attractive and respectful place. It is due to open, with a signature tower taller than the last ones, on 11 September 2011.

For now, however, the memorial building is very small, and although there are some memorabilia which tell the human story, the whole thing could and should be a lot bigger. For what will be remembered for centuries, and debated over by historians, there is less museum space than, say, Ellis Island.

Unique Suggestions: You won't miss much at the moment, and the dreadful memories are covered with heavy plant.

Awesome~THANK YOU SO MUCH for this comment!~>

"" I don't want to be disrespectfull or be just a gawking tourist.""

As for your tour, I say DEFINITELY NOT.
I would however use them for a tour of the downtown area..
I live here, just two blocks shy of the trade-center,
and let me tell you, the trade center pit is not at all the main attraction here..
and imo, was never really the cream of the downtown crop even when the buildings were standing..
A must-see, yes..
Worth more than 15 minutes, no.

Check out the World Financial Centre across the highway..
It's far more attractive than the trade center was (and of course is)..
Plus it has the "best" view of the construction site that is the WTC..
and has water-front property that is a nice refreshing touch to a day stuck in cement canyons.

As for downtown, ask your guide to see "historic lower manhattan"..
Wall St., Stone St., Hanover, South William St., Pearl & Water St., Marketfield.. all the hidden nooks and crannies of the REAL historic New Amsterdam..
Then stop in to Fraunces Tavern and soak it all up with an pint of Old Speckled Hen..

OR if you're a big construction buff.. or some kind of wierdo.. you can just stare at the WTC all day like those gawking tourists! hahah
:) Enjoy NYC!

Ground Zero is a place with a lot of tragic memories attached to it. If you would like to take a moment and remember the sad things that happend on September 11th, I would recomend you to go there. But if you are curious about the Ground Zero site, I have to disapoint you. It is all covered up with high fences covered so you can't see inside. And if you find a hole somewhere.... It is a contruction site, just a bit bigger than normal.

First of all, I agree that all the hawkers at Ground Zero are disgusting. It makes me sick to see people making money from this terrible tragedy.
However, to all of you who are telling others to stay away, I hope you remain consistent by never going to another wake to mourn the loss of a loved one. I needed to go and see Ground Zero as part of the healing process from this tragedy. These people may not have been part of my immediate family, but they were part of my American and human family. I shed a tear as I read the names on the wall, and I felt a sense of pride and renewed hope as I watched construction workers rebuild the site beneath the American flag. This tragedy affected us all, and no one should be able to judge whether or not someone else needs to visit this location. It wasn't only New Yorkers that were affected, it was millions of people from all over the world.

Yes, I went there and yes, I took pictures. I don't believe it necessarily makes me a voyeur. The events of 9/11 broke my heart - I love this city.
But... it really bothered me when people standing behind the fences of the viewing areas were talking really LOUD ("gee, look at that...! ") or just plain yapping, laughing, and acting like tourists often do. And yes, that included Americans, as well. I find such an attitude incomprehensible.
I mean, it may be so in appearance, but his is not just "a construction site where the two tallest buildings in the city once stood".

Unique Suggestions: This is not an attraction. It is a testimonial to the madness this world is sliding into. It is and forever will be a place of introspection.
Grief.
Hope.

Many of the people passing behind you lost relatives, friends and co-workers right where you are standing.
Act accordingly and show respect.
Please.

The site of the World Trade Center is something you, as a visitor, cannot avoid. You need to see it with your own eyes in order to fully comprehend what the dramatic photos and the horrific videos cannot convey. It happened to you, too.

But we are the ones who saw it happen. Most of us either lost someone that day or know someone who did. Over the weeks afterwards, the warm soft air of September, the same ambiance that inspired the song, "Autumn in New York," carried an an unmistakable and unspeakable stench of the thousands of dead. We lost too many of our brave firefighters, dependable EMS and resolute police to ever forget. For months afterwards, the city was papered with flyers and photos seeking information that would never come.

For myself, on the night of September 10th, I had dinner in an outdoor cafe less than 100 yards away from the South Tower, on the river walk. Afterwards, my dinner companion and I sat on a bench within 50 feet of the boats in the little harbor and chatted with a young mother who said how privileged she, her husband and her toddler were to live in the apartment whose window she pointed to. He worked in one of the upper floors.

A few minutes after 9am the next morning, as I watched the burning North Tower from my window in Jersey City, the second plane, flying abnormally low, turned directly overhead, then sharply back above the Statue of Liberty. I knew exactly where it was headed and screamed at it to stop. My neighbor down the hall, who had come to my window because her view was limited, collapsed when it hit because her she knew that her nephew worked on the very floors it had entered.

I tell you this you so will understand my own need to rage at those who stand on that sacred ground and peddle lurid booklets and videos to you. You will understand why, as I pass through the temporary PATH station, onto the plaza, I will interrupt the sale of that pornography. I ask you, please do not buy it.

Unique Suggestions: Please discourage anyone else from buying that crap. I promise you, possessing and looking at it will not be good for your own mental health. You will discover that it is not a souvenier you will put on your night stand or show to your friends with delight and shared fun.

Fun Alternatives: Go inside the St Paul Chapel and leave a donation. Visit the official Fire Department Memorial Wall at the site of Firehouse #10 on Liberty Street. You will find in those acts the closure and peace that the violent pornography of the attack cannot provide.

I'll spare you the moral outrage, though I'm sympathetic to it. I would agree more with the person complaining about the tchotchke salesmen down there, except that they'd go away if morons would stop buying their stuff. They're just trying to make a living, and it's hard to blame them for that no matter how tawdry a way of doing it it is (and believe me, it is), but there's really nothing more offensive to me than the sub-cretins who buy this crap to take back to Nebraska.

All right, I lied, I didn't skip the moral outrage, but the point is, in the immortal words of every cop in every movie ever made, "Show's over, folks, nothing more to see here." No matter how maudlin you are, no matter your sick, twisted fascination with this place, the fact remains that all you accomplish by going here is slowing down the people on Church Street and in the PATH station who are actually trying to get somewhere. Taking your cheesey snapshots won't bring back all the people who died for no reason, nor will it make the people who commit such wanton violence think twice before they do it again, so just go somewhere else, for your own mental health's sake.

Unique Suggestions: Spend as little time there as possible, don't buy any maudlin crap from the vendors, and don't pretend you know what you're talking about. If you weren't there, and/or you didn't know anyone who died or had to run for their lives, you simply cannot comprehend what it was like when it happened. You can fill up your digital camera card. You can buy an entire Vietnamese sweatshop's output of T-shirts with American flags on them, but it won't reach you in any meaningful way as far as I can tell. There are plenty of places for quiet reflection around the city, and this isn't one of them.

On the other hand, if you're interested in construction, and in particular very slow construction, and in particular construction of things we have no use for, you can watch the snail's-pace work on the new World Trade Center, anchored by the Freedom Tower, but it's not much to see, and you'll only be getting in the way. Every morning on my way to work I'm delayed by tourists. Don't be one of those people.

One more thing: sometimes the electronic sign in the PATH station is broken...it's supposed to say "Welcome|| to the World || Trade Center" (why you need an electronic sign to always show the same message is beyond me) but the rightmost section often breaks and so it's just "Welcome || to the World." That's worth a picture, I suppose...I've taken one myself. It's sort of poetic.

Fun Alternatives: To tell you the truth, I really enjoy wandering around Downtown. There's not much on the usual tourist path down there, other than Brooklyn Bridge and George Bush's Basement...erm...Ground Zero, and maybe the outside of the Stock Exchange, which is, by the way, only sort of on Wall Street...that's the side entrance. The front door and the prodigiously large flag across the columns and all that is around the corner on Broad Street. Anyway, walk around, bring a map if you're not too confident on your navigational abilities, and see where New York began.