New York City Tour

On Saturday, Bill, Hector, Matt, and I went on a tour of the World Trade Center during the morning. Now, I don't go on many tours but I'm glad I went on this one because it was fascinating and I learned so much. I really like history and facts and historical figures so I wondered why I didn't go on many tours. It never crosses my mind much, I suppose. I also learned a lot about the buildings around New York City and the male egos that went into building them. Apparently, New York has been the site for many competitions to construct the tallest building in the world. Additionally, we visited some very beautiful churches and learned about their history. One of them, the Trinity Church, has assets of over a billion dollars a year! I can't even think of money on that large of a scale. The other church we visited, St. Paul's Chapel, was the site of rest for many rescue workers during the September 11th fallout. Speaking of which, we went to the September 11th memorial at Ground Zero and saw the waterfall dedication there. Apparently, the United States had held an international  contest for someone to design the memorial and an Israeli architect won. His design was simple, elegant, and meaningful, the way a memorial should be. It just consisted of these four black walls dug into the site of Ground Zero and several stories down from those walls were four more walls. Waterfalls flowed into them and the names of those who had died in the September 11th attacks were etched onto the railing. It was a powerful moment for me, thinking of all those who had died that day; I almost started crying.

The other interesting thing was the Survivor Tree planted at Ground Zero. The tree was planted just outside of the original World Trade Center and was still standing after the attacks. It was badly damaged however, so people moved it to a park and nursed it back to health. It was struck by lightning twice while at the park and still remained standing. Once it was well again, it was transplanted back onto the site of Ground Zero. I stood looking up the tree and noticed where the color and texture of the bark changed from its old, original "skin" and the new bark that had grown while being nursed back to health. A survivor tree indeed and a fitting analogy for the American spirit.