My Visit to Ground Zero

I took a walk in the old world trade center area, now called ground zero by most.

I was glad to see the construction happening all around the area and in the old Twin Towers foundation.

It saddened me to see the many street peddlers setting up shop around the block and under the construction scaffolding on the sidewalks.

After the towers collapsed, commercialism began almost instantly in the streets of NY. I remember people protesting it initially. They said it was disrespectful to try to make money based on the disaster. But the protests died out and the peddlers remained. Ground zero became a tourist attraction.




People don't come and pay their respects to the thousands that perished in that bright sunny morning seven years ago. They come to have their picture taken next to the big empty hole in the ground or next to the security guard or cop that is standing around in his pristine uniform, almost as if the city had designed his post for that same purpose.



As I walked deeper into the PATH station to where the escalators and stairs retained some familiarityto the structure that had been there before 9/11 I felt the welling of emotion that I coulnt allow myself to have while someone was with me. It was my first time by myself. As the single tear escaped from my left eye I turned to the spectacle that the area had become and took pictures.


I guess everyone in the nation feels that they witnessed a tragidy that day. But to those of us that had to see it without the aid of the media, we now get to see the tragidy that it has become.