Visitor’s guide to 9/11 sites and Lower Manhattan

LEANNE ITALIE

Asso­ci­ated Press

NEW YORK — Out of the ashes of 9/11 has risen a vibrant neigh­bor­hood packed with new restau­rants and hotels, places to live and spots to shop, along with many ways to pay respects to an area some wor­ried would never come back.

A decade after the attack on the World Trade Cen­ter, Lower Man­hat­tan draws roughly 9 mil­lion of the city’s nearly 50 mil­lion vis­i­tors a year, includ­ing the area around ground zero.

The neigh­bor­hood now has 18 hotels with more than 4,000 rooms, up from six hotels and 2,300 rooms on Sept. 11, 2001. For many tourists, it’s a must-see, right up there with Times Square and the Statue of Liberty.

“It’s a 24/7 neigh­bor­hood,” said George Fer­titta, chief exec­u­tive of NYC & Com­pany, the city’s mar­ket­ing and tourism arm. “It’s a great moment in time for Lower Manhattan.”

While local shop­ping, restau­rants and other attrac­tions abound, remem­ber­ing 9/11 is the pri­mary focus for many vis­i­tors. The new memo­r­ial at ground zero will open on the 10th anniver­sary of the tragedy. A museum will open at the site a year later under a glass atrium, tak­ing vis­i­tors 70 feet down on gen­tle ramps to the very epi­cen­ter of what used to be “the pit.”

Ans van de Pasch, 49, of Venlo in south­east­ern Hol­land, first vis­ited ground zero three years ago, peek­ing through masked fences like thou­sands of oth­ers. This sum­mer, the site is more vis­i­ble and she brought her hus­band and two teens.

“There’s a dif­fer­ent spirit. You can feel the com­mu­nity is back,” Pasch said as they walked through the nearby St. Paul’s Chapel, where weary fire­fight­ers, police and vol­un­teer res­cuers sought refuge dur­ing their des­per­ate work in 2001.

She wanted her kids to see the ground zero area for them­selves. “It’s very nec­es­sary that you can have one moment in your life when you let your­self, as a cit­i­zen of the world, stop and think, ‘This must never hap­pen again.’”

Here are some details on vis­it­ing the memo­r­ial, along with sug­ges­tions for other things to do in Lower Man­hat­tan, from inti­mate tours offered by the Sep­tem­ber 11 Fam­i­lies’ Asso­ci­a­tion to shop­ping, parks and restaurants.

NATIONAL SEPTEMBER 11 MEMORIAL & MUSEUM: The memo­r­ial is a big reveal years in the mak­ing. Cre­ated by design com­pe­ti­tion win­ner Michael Arad, who part­nered with Cal­i­for­nia land­scape archi­tect Peter Walker, it takes up about half of the 16-acre site. Addi­tional office build­ings and a new tran­sit hub remain under con­struc­tion with the museum.

The memo­r­ial will be ded­i­cated on Sept. 11 dur­ing a cer­e­mony for vic­tims’ fam­i­lies. It opens to the pub­lic the fol­low­ing day.

“The fact that this memo­r­ial out­lines the very foot­prints where these tow­ers stood sends a mes­sage to the world of what we lost that day and how we’ve come together,” said 9/11 Memo­r­ial Pres­i­dent Joe Daniels.

On the twin foot­prints of the tow­ers are gen­tle water­falls that empty into mas­sive reflect­ing pools edged by bronze para­pets with the names of the 2,983 peo­ple killed on 9/11 in New York, in a field near Shanksville, Pa., and at the Pen­ta­gon, along with vic­tims of the 1993 bomb­ing at the World Trade Center.

“Could they do it again?” asks 9-year-old Grisham Aleshire of Spring­field, Mo., look­ing out at the con­struc­tion where the fallen tow­ers stood. “They have lots of secu­rity now,” mom Tia reassures.

When the memo­r­ial opens, 225 swamp white oak trees will have been planted around the site. More than 400 are planned over­all, cre­at­ing an urban grove. On the west side of the south pool, bor­der­ing a small clear­ing called the memo­r­ial glade, stands the “sur­vivor tree.” It’s a Callery pear res­cued from the rub­ble and nursed back to health in the Bronx, only to be struck by light­ning and sur­vive again last year. Pres­i­dent Obama laid a wreath at the tree in May, and new growth on branches that were once almost entirely shorn are thriving.

Access to the site can be con­fus­ing as con­struc­tion con­tin­ues. Many sub­way stops, includ­ing those at Cham­bers and Ful­ton streets, will bring you nearby. Timed tick­ets (free but required) can be reserved up to six months in advance at http://www.911memorial.org . About 250,000 passes have already been reserved. Print your tick­ets before­hand if you can. Enter at the north­east cor­ner of Albany and Green­wich streets for check-in no more than 30 min­utes ahead of your reservation.

Through Jan. 8, the memo­r­ial is open 10 a.m. to last entry at 7 p.m. week­days; 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. week­ends; last entry at 5 p.m. Jan. 9-March 10.

No restrooms will be avail­able on site until the museum opens in Sep­tem­ber 2012. The World Finan­cial Center’s glass-enclosed Win­ter Gar­den has pub­lic restrooms and there are some on the sec­ond floor of the Burger King on Lib­erty Street at Church.

TOURS: The Sep­tem­ber 11 Fam­i­lies’ Asso­ci­a­tion offers inti­mate tours led by sur­vivors, 9/11 work­ers and loved ones of those who perished.

Tracy Gaz­zani, a retired school teacher from Brook­lyn, has done more than 150 of the tours, recount­ing the life and loss of her 24-year-old son, Terry. He worked a bonds desk at Can­tor Fitzger­ald on the 104th floor of the north tower.

She spoke halt­ingly about learn­ing of peo­ple who were jump­ing from the burn­ing tow­ers and her family’s fran­tic dis­tri­b­u­tion of fliers in search of Terry in the aftermath.

“This is my way of heal­ing,” Gaz­zani said. “My way of help­ing other peo­ple heal, because it’s very impor­tant that we all learn to heal.”

The tours stop indoors at the World Finan­cial Cen­ter build­ings for bird’s eye views of ground zero as the guides tell their sto­ries to groups of 20 or less.

Tours ($10, under 12 free) are offered daily from the Trib­ute WTC Vis­i­tor Cen­ter, run by the fam­i­lies’ asso­ci­a­tion, at 120 Lib­erty St. across from ground zero. Only groups of 10 or more may reserve a tour in advance; oth­ers should check the tour sched­ule at http://www.Tributewtc.org and arrive at least an hour before sched­uled depar­ture time.

The tours usu­ally include a stop at “11 Tears,” a memo­r­ial hon­or­ing 11 Amer­i­can Express employ­ees who died on 9/11, located in the company’s head­quar­ters in the lobby of 3 World Finan­cial Cen­ter. Sus­pended above an 11-sided gran­ite pool is a 600-pound quartz stone, carved into an 11-sided teardrop. Eleven drops of water fall into the pool peri­od­i­cally, cre­at­ing inter­sect­ing rip­ples. Vic­tims’ names and words cho­sen by their loved ones are etched on the stone.

FIRE DEPARTMENT MEMORIAL: Next door to the Trib­ute WTC Vis­i­tor Cen­ter, out­side the fire­house on Green­wich Street at Lib­erty, is the Fire Depart­ment of New York Memo­r­ial Wall. The fire­house, home to Lad­der Co. 3, Engine Co. 10, lost five fire­fight­ers on 9/11, but the wall is a trib­ute to all fire­fight­ers who died. It was a gift from the law firm Hol­land & Knight and also hon­ors one of the firm’s part­ners, Glenn J. Winuk, a vol­un­teer fire­fighter and medic from Jeri­cho, N.Y. He helped evac­u­ate the firm’s offices near the World Trade Cen­ter, then raced to the tow­ers to help. Winuk died when the south tower collapsed.

CHURCHES: St. Paul’s Chapel, a small Epis­co­pal church built in 1766, mirac­u­lously sur­vived 9/11 just across the street from the World Trade Cen­ter. Through May 2002, vol­un­teers min­is­tered around the clock to ground zero work­ers at the chapel. Now on dis­play, the exhibit “Unwa­ver­ing Spirit” includes one of many cots set up with hand-knit blan­kets and stuffed ani­mals dur­ing the har­row­ing work. A col­lec­tion of uni­form patches pay­ing trib­ute to vol­un­teers from around the world still smells of smoke. Enter through the grave­yard, on Church Street, between Vesey and Fulton.

Part of the same Epis­co­pal parish, Trin­ity Church at the cor­ner of Broad­way and Wall Street was another nearby refuge for relief work­ers. A sculp­ture out front was made out of a giant sycamore tree destroyed on 9/11.

MUSEUMS: Nearby muse­ums include the National Museum of the Amer­i­can Indian, New York Police Museum, the Museum of Jew­ish Her­itage, which hon­ors vic­tims of the Holo­caust, and the Sky­scraper Museum in Bat­tery Park City.

RESTAURANTS, SHOPPING AND DEALS: Stone Street, a cob­ble­stone pedes­trian mall closed to traf­fic, is lined with restau­rants offer­ing out­door table ser­vice. The pop­u­lar Adrienne’s Piz­z­abar is on Stone between Broad and Hanover. One of New York’s old­est steak­houses, Delmonico’s, is nearby on Beaver; his­toric Fraunces Tav­ern — with a museum — is on Pearl.

Shop­ping ranges from bar­gains at the mas­sive Cen­tury 21 store across from ground zero to lux­ury retail­ers like Her­mes, 15 Broad St., and Tiffany, 37 Wall St. Street ven­dors, the trib­ute cen­ter shop and many other places sell post­cards, pho­tos and other 9/11 mementos.

A new cam­paign from NYC & Com­pany includes Lower Man­hat­tan hotel deals, restau­rant pro­mo­tions and mer­chant dis­counts at http://www.nycgo.com/getmorenyc/lower-manhattan . The Down­town Alliance of New York — http://www.downtownny.com — is a trove of infor­ma­tion on things to do and how to get around.

PARKS: With 25 acres of water­front park­land, the Bat­tery is the largest pub­lic open space in Lower Man­hat­tan. Pier 25 on the Hud­son River in Tribeca between Franklin and North Moore streets has an 18-hole minia­ture golf course, beach vol­ley­ball, pic­nic lawn and play­ground. Near the Police Museum, Old Slip Park is a good place to rest tired feet.

Near Pearl Street, the British Gar­den at Hanover Square hon­ors 67 British sub­jects who died on 9/11. Queen Eliz­a­beth II, in long sleeves, white gloves and hat, offi­cially opened the park in sear­ing heat last July.

WALL STREET: Never mind the bear mar­ket. Stop by for a photo op with the famous bronze charg­ing bull sculp­ture in Bowl­ing Green Park near 26 Broad­way, or dive into the neighborhood’s his­tory on a guided tour from Wall Street Walks — http://www.Wallstreetwalks.com . All include ground zero.

Posted by AP News on Aug 12 2011. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.