- my iParenting
- quick clicks
- home style today articles
- home style today q&a
- traveling today articles
- traveling today q&a
- community & groups
- research baby names
- prepare a birth plan
- content channels
- ip channel rss feeds
- read birth stories
- read parenting stories
- recommended books
- e-newsletters
- safety recalls
- ip diaries
- ip store
- mom of the month
- dad of the month
- editor's letter
- letters to the editor
From Our Sponsors
- e-newsletters
- Sign up to receive our free weekly e-newsletters
- award-winning products
The iParenting Media Awards program helps parents find the best products for their families.
The Ground Zero Museum
A Must-do When in New York City
By Jenn Director Knudsen
I should have remembered a New York block is way longer than any other city's blocks. On my map, West 14th Street didn't look too far from my starting point, 98th Street in Uptown. So I set out on foot – passing seemingly all of humanity en route – to my destination: The new Ground Zero Museum Workshop in the Meatpacking District.
It was more than worth the 42-block, nearly 4-mile trek to view the beautifully and sensitively displayed gads of shocking remnants from the 9/11 recovery effort.
Among the remnants were teddy bears originally sold in the World Trade Center (WTC) gift shop near the 107th-floor viewing platform, coated with WTC towers' dust, and shards of WTC glass that resemble cut crystal.
Also, a wall-mounted, frayed firefighter's hose and a wall clock whose frozen hands report 10:02:14, the instant the south tower collapsed after the terrorists' hijacked jet slammed into the building the morning of September 11, 2001.
But perhaps most arresting of all are the 76 framed sepia and color photographs – shot from September 2001 to May 2002 – that adorn the walls and tabletops of the roughly 1,000-square-foot permanent exhibit that opened September 2005.
The photographs depict the heavily uniformed firefighters of the FDNY picking and digging their way through hell: the twisted, canted, severed and smoldering metal, the flag-draped bodies being removed or prayed over by physically exhausted, emotionally spent firefighters.
Only one photographer was granted full, all-area access to get such raw and real images. And Gary Marlon Suson has made his very special and powerful collection available to the world.