Journeys of the Questress - WTC
Oct 5 - A Mile of Tears - Part 1
Home
The Way it Was - 1
The Way it Was - 2
Sept 19 - When Tomorrow Never Comes
Sept 27 - Oral Interpretation
Oct 5 - A Mile of Tears - Part 1
Oct 5 - A Mile of Tears - Part 2
Oct 5 - A Mile of Tears - Part 3
Oct 11 - Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow
Oct 28 - Each Day I Search the Rubble
Nov 12 - When Spires Fall
Nov 19 - 911 The Rape of America
Dec 14 - Just A Thought
Dec 18 - A Sense of Place
Feb 2 - Final Pass to the End Zone
March 3 - Sitting on the Edge
March 14- Do You Still Remember
March 20 - Virtual Walk-Through
March 25 - When Will It End - Part 1
March 25 - When Will It End - Part 2
April 1 - Towers of Light
May 14 - View From Above
May 30 - Tunnel At the End of the Light
May 31 - Seventeen Hundred
Aug 9 - From the Margins Erased
Aug 30 - The Train Doesn't Stop There Anymore
Sept 9 - Ceremonies of Light and Dark
Sept 10 - Just An Anniversary
Sept 12 - September Holds Great Promise
Literary Reflections
Rebirth and Resurrection
The Winter Garden Springs To Life
The Winter Garden Springs To Life - con't
Underpass to the Past
Rebuilding Ground Zero
Under Hallowed Ground
Borders
Yahrzeit
What Will Fill the Void?
I Submit a Design
Footprints in the Dust
My Memorial Design Submission
My Memorial Design - Drawings
New Path Train Station
Path Station Tour
May We Never Forget
That Which Surives
War Without End
4th Anniversary
Footprints in the Dust
Void
I Miss 9/11
Time Comes Between Us
A Thousand Cranes
Fear Factor
Love Letters On The Wall
Empty Chairs
Sitting on the Edge of Forever
Walking the Perimeter of Emptiness
A Counting of Days
For Friends Absent But Not Forgotten
Stigmata
The Memory Keeper's Promise
Unbreak My Heart
Standing On The Edge Of Forever
Both Sides Now
A Memory In Time
The Gravity of Loss
The Survivors Rise Up
Flowers Will Bloom
The Fire Within Us
The Sentinel
Stronger Than The Storm
Between the Candle and the Stars
Ghosts
A Journey Through Remembrance
Canticle of Remembrance
Beyond the Crucible of Chaos
Journey Through Remembrance project
What See We Now
Forever In Our Hearts
Keeping the Flame Alive
The Rebuilding of Ground Zero continues
Does Anyone Care Anymore?
Where Is Our Story Teller of Pain
At Memory's Edge
Dust Thou Art and to Dust Thou Shalt Return
7x7x70
Heroes Never Die
The Flame Inside Our Hearts
The Year of the Heroes of 9/11
Déjà Vu
Remembering 9/11 in the year of COVID-19
Coronavirus Decimates Ailing Sept. 11 Responders
Touching From a Distance
That Which Survives 20 years later
2021 - 20 years later
Memories of Terror Return
Putin's Name Covered Over On Teardrop Memorial
The 9/11 Tribute Museum Closes
When Memories Fade Away
St. Nicholas at Ground Z is rebuilt
The Blue Wall of the Unidentified Victims
When Time Calls Your Name
When Art Gets It All Wrong

wtcbanner2.jpg

A Mile of Tears

We live in an era of 'live' television, instant reports directly from the scene. We can see and hear the victims at the moment they are impacted by a  tragedy. We see them hurt, bleeding, crying, running for their lives. But it's not 'real'. It is not only filtered through the lens of the one holding the camera, it lacks smell and touch along with the bodily sensation of being in that specific physical place.

Like so many others I had to go to 'Ground Zero'. We each go for our own reasons. For me, I had lost not a person, but a physical part of my life.The WTC and the area around it had been a special part of NYC to me. I had worked down there, played down there, shopped down there, and retreated down there when I needed an escape to a beautiful place. Within 2 hours it was vaporized. The TV images and the magazine pictures didn't suffice. In order to grieve, I needed to place myself there and feel it in all it's reality.

Those who had made the trip say it is like nothing they had ever experienced. The place is surreal, they say, and the 'live' television shots do not prepare you for the actuality. But there is more to what I now call 'a pilgrimage' to Ground Zero.

The reality hit me as soon as I exited the subway train at Fulton Street Pungent, damp, burnt out building smell. And odd, since the subway station itself showed no signs of smoke damage. Then I ascended the stairs, exited the entrance, and almost threw up as the stench filled my nostrils. Not only was the wind blowing directly from the direction of the smoldering part of 'The Pile', I entered the street facing in the direction where the first view I got was of the one remaining burnt out shell of WTC number 5.  It was like a skeleton standing defiantly amidst the graves.

.
 
 
 

groundzero1.jpg

groundzero2.jpg

Continue with....