| A Fitting Tribute The
September 11th Families Association have taken over a former deli on 120
Liberty Street, right across from the World Trade Center site, and created
The Tribute Center – a very personal memorial. Photos, keepsakes,
mementos, and tributes sent in by victims’ families all help the
outsider get a firsthand feel for the immense tragedy of the day.
 By
Michelle Harty
On September 11, 2001, my nineteenth birthday, I woke up in my St. Mary’s
College of California dorm room to the sound of the phone ringing at 6:45
a.m. Groggily, I picked up and listened to my mom’s voice telling
me to turn on my television. My memories of the rest of that day are strewn
with images of planes crashing into buildings over and over again. I attempted
to go to class, on the way seeing a crowd of students in the hallway huddled
under a screen showing the crashing planes. My classes were all canceled
except for one, in which my teary-eyed teacher asked the class to discuss
the tragedy for about twenty minutes.
My boyfriend of the time took me out that night for a birthday dinner.
The restaurant was eerily quiet except for another crowd huddled under
another TV with more crashing planes, along with some images of dusty
streets and crowds of horrified running people in between. While I understood
that the disaster was huge, it seemed surreal to me. I felt very distant
from it, and the bombardment of the repetitive footage of the crashing
planes only numbed me and made it even harder to grasp the true immensity
and horror of what had happened.
Four years later, I moved to New York City. I became a part of the amazing
ebb, flow, and harmony that is Manhattan, and came to learn that this
is a city full of persevering and talented people. There is an energy
here that motivates and moves people; New Yorkers never stop moving and
they are strong. They support each other.
In my first explorations of New York, of course I went to visit Ground
Zero. I gazed over the construction site and thought, “This is all?”
“I wonder what it looked like before.” I searched the area
in front of the gaping hole in the ground for something, anything that
would connect me to the disaster that had happened there. I found nothing
but a metal chain link fence. Once again, I felt distant, empty, and removed.
There were a few other lost-looking people at the site and I could tell
that they felt the same. Were we supposed to just forget about it and
move on? It felt wrong.
 Recently
I have had the privilege of meeting with former New York City Fire Department
Deputy Commissioner Lynn Tierney, who responded to the attacks of September
11, narrowly escaping injury in the collapse of Tower One. Lynn was one
of the few women working in the mostly male FDNY, and was greatly endeared
by them. She lost many of those firefighters on September 11th and since
that day has continually worked to support others who also experienced
loss. A valued leader of the September 11th Families Association, which
unites and supports families of those who were lost, Lynn has a presence
that is both comforting and strong. She is now the president of the Tribute
Center.
Lynn assured me that I am not alone in the distance and disconnection
that I felt as I stared over Ground Zero. In fact, the members of the
September 11th Families Association used to look out the windows of their
office to see thousands of baffled people mill around the site. Visitors
do not come just to see the remains; they want the whole story. And while
they have been searching for at least a piece of it, the survivors and
family members of victims have been continually recovering.
They carry their stories with them, and need to share them as a part
of their healing. They too have been visiting the site to pay tribute
to their loved ones, sadly finding very little recognition of their tragedy.
The Families Association saw a solution. Visitors of the WTC site want
to learn. The victims have the knowledge and need an outlet through which
to share. It was a perfect match.
Chance had it that an empty deli was right across the street from the
World Trade Center site and next door to Engine Company 10 and Ladder
Company
10. Phone calls were made and the Association was able to secure the former
Liberty Deli as its own. With a lot of planning, and the help of the Lower
Manhattan Development Corporation and the Port Authority of New York and
New Jersey who are funding the $3.3 million center, the former deli has
become the Tribute Memorial Center; the fruitless searching is over.
During the planning and construction of the Tribute Center, the Families
Association has been filling the “emptiness” with daily walking
tours of the site. Led by family members who lost loved ones, rescue workers,
and survivors of the attacks, the tour is an hour long, and consists of
five stops around the World Trade Center site. The tours, like the memorial,
give the public a chance to learn the story of September 11th from a voice
of experience, and facilitate the healing process for the tour leaders.
Walking through Tribute did more than help me feel connected. It saddened,
enraged, overwhelmed me, and made me feel proud. Most importantly though,
it brought me to the heart of the situation through stories of personal
experience and helped me to finally have a true sense of the magnitude
of pain and loss created by the terrorist attacks.
Upon entering Tribute, Gallery 1 visitors are introduced to what the
World Trade Center once was. The first object they see is an 8-foot model
of the twin towers set in a grid on the floor of the surrounding area,
lower Manhattan. The model faces a photographic wall mural of the view
from the top of the towers. The mural is geographically correct, facing
the water, and gives an idea of what it had been like to look out from
the top of the towers. A video presents the liveliness of the World Trade
Center community, which included concerts in the plaza and decorations
every Christmastime, using actual footage of the World Trade Center as
well as descriptions by people who were there.
Bridging the first gallery to the second is the first of a series of
13-foot high panels, which are the exact dimensions of the windows of
the towers. The first panel tells the story of the first terrorist attack
on February 26, 1993. The second gallery, a 40-foot-long corridor of panels,
follows, each panel a piece of the timeline of the events of September
11, 2001.
Unlike a typical museum presentation of history, this minute-by-minute
breakdown of the day is presented as a series of firsthand experiences;
we learn what it was like for specific people in specific parts of the
day. Objects give life to those tragic moments, such as a pair of shoes
that a woman wore as she ran down 92 flights of stairs, and a cell phone
that a man grabbed on his way out of his office. Audio, video, quotes
and photos are also used. Opposite the timeline is a wall mural that starts
out bright blue, the color of the sky early on September 11. Gradually,
missing posters appear in the blue, clouding and covering it and then
completely obliterating the blue at the end of the wall.
The third gallery is dedicated to rescue and recovery operations. The
first thing people notice in this gallery is a giant piece of steel from
the World Trade Center that was twisted and mangled on 9/11. Huge graphics,
objects, and film pay tribute to the many individuals and organizations
that rushed to the site and worked tirelessly for months on the recovery
effort.
One of these individuals is Lee Ielpi, the Tribute Center’s co-founder.
Lee, a retired firefighter who had specialized in search and rescue, was
a key player in the recovery operations.
Lee lost his son Jonathan, also a firefighter, on September 11. The
gallery displays the mutilated fireman’s jacket that Jonathan was
wearing when he was finally found in the wreckage of the South Tower on
December 11, 2001.
 The last
gallery on the main level displays the names of the victims, as well as
photos, keepsakes, mementos, and tributes sent in by victims’ families.
One of the first items received was a photo of the beautiful Joanne Creegan
sent from her family who misses her in Dublin, where she was born and
raised. From posters made by children proclaiming how much they love and
miss their mom or dad to a death certificate showing that the death was,
by law, a homicide, this gallery allows victims’ families to participate,
pay tribute, and show a piece of their experience to the world.
The fifth and final gallery is on the lower level of the center. This
gallery features images and objects that reflect the outpouring of support
that came from across the nation and across the world. After the emotional
journey that the center takes one through upstairs, this gallery is like
a much-needed hug. Included are origami cranes of peace sent from Japan
and a quote from a eulogy given by CEO Pat Ryan of AON that speaks of
the way that disaster can put us in touch with our “aon,”
which is Gaelic for oneness or unity. Said Ryan, “Suffering together
reminds us of the truth of our humanity. It reminds us that none of us
is truly alone. We are interconnected.” Group meetings and programs
will be scheduled in this gallery.
Some may find the Tribute Center shocking and overwhelming. The stories
are hard to listen to and the images hard to look at. The memorial evokes
emotion that will remain with people long after they walk out the door.
Is it too much? No. It is exactly what is needed to educate visitors and
commemorate a tragedy of this size.
Tribute gives the public what the media failed to give us: human beings.
While news reports allowed us to get only so close to the people and events
of 9/11, the Tribute Center lets us zoom in. It is as if a friend is sitting
there and opening up about a painful experience. And the survivors get
to feel the benefits of that kind of sharing as well. Says Kate McPadden,
who lost her husband, a firefighter, to 9/11, speaking about both leading
the World Trade Center tours and the Tribute Center: “The best thing
is the person-to-person connection.” Many tears will be shed inside
the Tribute Center, but, in the wake of one of our nation’s greatest
catastrophes, it feels right to finally have real names and faces to grieve
for.
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