9/11 Museum: America’s top tourist drawer

We spent most of Tuesday taking the New Haven Line train ride from Stamford, Connecticut for the one-hour ride to the Grand Central Station in Midtown, Manhattan. After lunch, we took a cab to the downtown area to see the newly-opened 9/11 Museum, which is beside the Freedom Tower. The 9/11 Museum only opened a few weeks ago but our cousin Inda Gage was able to secure us tickets to the museum. Yes tickets are difficult to come by.

As it is now summer vacation in the United States, it is turning out that the top tourist destination these days is the 9/11 Museum. We had a ticket for 2 p.m., however we still had to line up and the queues were very long for that particular time. The queue beside us was for the 2:30 p.m. … and it was even a longer queue. Indeed for Americans who lost many friends or relatives in the 9/11 tragedy, the museum is a must-see for those people.

Our connection to the 9/11 terror attack on the World Trade Center (WTC) stems from the fact that we all saw this tragedy on CNN television. Who would ever forget seeing those two commercial aircraft piloted by terrorists slamming into the Twin Towers WTC and turned these icons of American architecture into a burning inferno? What no one expected, including Osama bin Laden himself, is that the twin towers would collapse and hour after those planes hit them.

While Osama bin Laden and his ilk succeeded in destroying the WTC, the Americans turned this horrific incident and turned it into the 9/11 Museum and in turn, it has become America’s must see tourist attraction. The last time I was in New York City was exactly a year after the 9/11 incident and at that time, all one could see was a huge hold on the ground. Today, more people go to this place than when it was the World Trade Center.

The 9/11 Museum is actually located three to four stories underground…to the very foundations of the WTC. The main structures where the columns of the WTC were anchored on are right there for you to see in both the North and the South Towers and the ruined fire trucks. 

Inside are colored photographs of the nearly 3,000 people who died in that terror attack. There are so many artifacts on display, like someone’s wallet and driver’s license, a Nokia cellphone or handbags containing credit cards and IDs. I learned that all identifiable items were returned to their respective families, who in turn offered them to the museum for display.

When I was looking at the photos of those who perished in this disaster, I felt like I was visiting a grave. Somehow, I had exactly the same feeling when a few years ago, my sister Adela Kono and husband Yuki invited me to visit the Hiroshima Memorial in Japan. Inside that memorial were artifacts that showed the extent of the destruction done by the atomic bomb, like melted glass or walls where the shadow imprint of those who died were permanently transferred into the wall like they were shadows. But in reality that was what was left of those people who were incinerated by the atom bomb.

While the bombing of Hiroshima ended the Second World War, the 9/11 terror attack officially started the War on Terror that many pundits are now saying is an unwinnable war. During lunch, I was watching CNN News about the insurgents taking over most of Iraq giving US Pres. Barack Obama another problem that he obviously is in a dilemma handling. 

Incidentally, entering the 9/11 museum is akin to entering an airport for your flight.  Security was very tight in the museum, they even used a state of the art scanning machine to check out those entering the museum. Police patrols were everywhere inside or outside the museum. Outside are the two square granite memorial that has all the names of those who perished in this tragedy. At this point, we can only hope and pray that this terror attack would never happen again in American soil.

After visiting the 9/11 museum, we took the subway to 42nd Street to Times Square and walked to the Majestic Theater to watch the longest running Broadway show, Phantom of the Opera. Yes this was my 3rd time to watch this musical, though there were a few changes, but the music was still classic Andrew Lloyd Webber. The first time I saw this musical it was Michael Crawford and Sarah Brightman who starred in the show. Their songs are in my iPhone and I always listen to this music every now and then,

That was our last day in New York City. The following day, John Gage drove us to Newport, Rhode Island to explore this part of New England that I have never visited before. There you will see the glory days of America by seeing the magnificent homes of the Vanderbilts called the Breakers, which was built in 1895. We also got to see the Rosecliff house built in 1902. But due to lack of time, we could only see two beautiful homes. But this was one part of America that is truly worth seeing. On the way back, we had buffet dinner at the Foxwoods Resort & Casino, then back to Stamford.

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