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12/30/2001
NEW YORK – After three months of peering through gaps in fences and past
police barricades, visitors today got an unobstructed view of the remains
of the World Trade Center from a newly built observation platform.
Starting at dawn, hundreds of people stood in a line that snaked for
blocks, waiting in freezing temperatures for the 13-foot-high stage to
open at 9 a.m.
For some, the view of ground zero was a religious epiphany.
"This is disturbing – but also wonderful. We are Christians, and this
teaches us to help and love one another," said Shannon Pope of St.
Louis, Mo., tears streaming down her cheeks as she clutched her
4-year-old son Collin in her arms.
She had won the visit for herself and 19 relatives in a nationwide
family reunion essay contest. The group included her 90-year-old
grandmother, Janice Floyd.
"It's unbelievable! It's still smoking!" Floyd said when she saw the
devastation.
The platform, accessed by a long wooden ramp, can hold between 300 to
400 people. It is big enough across the front for about a dozen people
at a time to stand side-by-side to see the huge red cranes and other
machinery that have been at work day and night since the Sept. 11
terrorist attacks.
The cranes still stop, almost daily, so workers can remove the remains
of the dead.
Instead of craning for a view down blocked-off streets, visitors now can
get an unobstructed view of the jagged holes in the ground that open
into what was once the trade center's underground mall.
"What struck me was the open wide space, no buildings. But it also looks
like a construction site," said Scott Smith, who drove to New York from
West Hartford, Conn., with his 7-year-old daughter, Lane.
The rectangular, fenced-in structure is located on Church Street
alongside the cemetery behind historic St. Paul's Church, and within
view of City Hall.
The platform was officially opened Saturday by Mayor Rudolph Giuliani,
who urged people to "come here and say a little prayer and reflect on
the whole history of America."
Giuliani also added an inscription to one of the wooden railings: "We
will always remember what you did here – you, our heroes – to save
America. God bless you."
The city plans three more observation platforms in the area, but there
was no immediate word on when they would be finished.
History was on the mind of Greg Packer, a New Yorker visiting ground
zero for the fourth time.
"Each time, it just gets harder and harder," he said. "But there's
nothing more important than to see this. This is more important to me
than any concert or game that I've ever seen, because this is history."
A visitor from France, Frederic Hustache of Paris, got up at 6 a.m. to
join the line – but the cold drove him into a coffee shop across the
street.
"The point is not to actually see everything. It's to feel what is
here," he said.
Hustache came with a friend, Armand Benezra, who had last visited when
the twin towers were intact.
"I still remember New York that way," Benezra said. "This has become a
sort of big cemetery. And we are here because of all the people who
died. We're here to pay tribute to them."