Last time Paul and I went to New York, the 9/11 Memorial didn’t exist.  It was still Ground Zero.  With construction fences and an eerie feeling all around it.  Certainly not much to look at.  It’s amazing what they’ve done in the last 5 years.  I think the design is smart.  It’s calming and heartbreaking.

The names.
The trees lining the perimeter.
The water flowing down into oblivion.
Where the buildings once stood.
The survivor tree.
The pieces.
What was once a grand structure now reduced to scrap metal.
Remnants for us to gaze at.

I gotta say, it’s still a little unsettling, as you wait in line – plane after plane fly right past.  From a certain angle, you can’t tell how close they are.  Feels weird.  The whole thing.  There is a reverence that is rare in the big city.  I connected with that.

‘Murica.

But enough of the mushy stuff. The silly part of this story is how we got lost trying to get to the 9/11 Memorial. Dang it!  We were so brave and wanted to take the subway.  We figured it would be fun for the kids and cost a lot less than taking 2 or 3 cabs.  So from Central Park, we walked and walked and walked until we reached the subway station near Lincoln Center.  Down, down, down we went.  We were supposed to take the C Train according to everyone.  But the A Train was the only one running.  So we boarded, and all we knew was to look for the Chambers or Fulton exits.  We rode for maybe a good 1/2 hour before we all started looking at each other like this can’t be right?  We finally decided to exit at Nostrand and at least see if we had missed it.

This station was a lot different than the stations in Manhattan.  It was a little darker.  No cool artwork.  Tough security guards.  Rusty gates.

Uhhhhh….

When we asked the security guard if we were close to Chambers or Fulton, he laughed.  No.  You are pretty far away.  You’re going to need to turn around.  So we left the station to get to the other side of the tracks and head back… As we walked out of the subway, and squinted into the bright daylight, things came into view.  Aw, shit.  Toto, we are not in Manhattan anymore.  One of the kids cried out “Is this still New York?!”

I don’t know where we were.  I don’t get spooked by crummy neighborhoods too easily, seeing as I grew up in one.  But that didn’t stop me from holding my camera a little tighter.  We were not in danger at all, and the people helping us were really nice.  It just caught us off guard that it was so drastically different.

Anyway, to make a long story short-ish, we figured it out.  We made it with our lives in tact.  Obviously.  #dramatic

—– stranded at NOSTRAND —–