The big hole in the sky in this photo is the place where the World Trade Center should be. There wasn't a lot of opportunity to see this site and what is being constructed on it but it was nonetheless a weighty experience to stand right here and be this close.


I lived here in Washington, D. C. on September 11, 2001 and I haven't been up to New York since before that day. It just seemed like too much. (It's hard enough driving past the Pentagon whenever I have to take I395 out of the city.) It was still almost too much seven years later, but I'm glad to have been there and marked the moment. The church across the street, St. Paul's Chapel, was quite moving and I was impressed by what a place of escape and refuge it seemed. How much more a haven it must have been for the volunteers and workers who actually did take refuge there in the weeks and months after.