Before Sunday I had never been to the WTC. Neither standing nor fallen. At first glance, as people had told me, the location really does just look like a construction zone–perfect mounds of dirt, bulldozers, smoothed out areas ready for development. But as I stood, taking it all in, the reminders (both big and small) are all very apparent. Poster size photographs of the relief effort, an aerial shot of the flattened area, vendors selling WTC memorabilia (gag!), surrounding skyscrapers still being rebuilt, and this ominous left over–a cross beam from one of the towers that acts as a tombstone.
Before Sunday I thought the emotional impact of Ground Zero had been bulldozed away with the building’s remnants, but it’ll never be just another construction site.