I caught a bus down town, taking in all the streets scenes that passed me by, and got off at the World Financial Centre. This distracted me somewhat from my route to the 911 site and I decided to explore the area a little.
There were lots of business-type people and office workers and stepping inside I was greeted by an array of restaurants. I walked through the lobby and out the other side which brought me to an open area which over looks the North Cove Marina.
It seemed like a tourist free area, apart from myself, and the tourist helicopter passing by periodically, which broke the peace and quiet.
I gathered my bearings on my map and back tracked out of the World Financial Centre, took a right and walked over a bridge that led the the 9/11 building site. I stopped at a gateway of the construction site and got chatting to a construction worker. He told me he had his own business, but had put that on hold to work on the new site. He seemed genuinely happy to be working there and excited about the plans. Telling me that the new tower he was working on was going up at the rate of one floor a week (at least), he compared the building work to a jigsaw puzzle; once you have the initial pieces in place, it's easy to just slot in the rest.
There was some police presence around the site, but having said that, Manhattan seems to be pretty well policed all over. There had recently been some furore about the 'Ground Zero Mosque' and community centre, with opposers creating quite an ugly scene about it. I'm with Mayor Bloomberg on this one.
I made my way to the 9/11 Memorial Preview Site, and made a (rather emotional) video of that experience.
You can view photos from the book I refer to, Here Is New York, on their website.
I'll leave you with some of the images from my time at Ground Zero.
