Ground zero visit
 

Will be in Manhattan in two weeks. I understand the blue lights from the site have been extinguished. Was this the reason to visit in the nighttime? Is it now advisable to visit in daylight hours?

We just returned Saturday night from NYC, we were at ground zero around 5pm. If you go to ground zero the only thing you really see is all the memorials, they were very moving to see. I think daylight hours are the best. Have fun.

I assume the "have fun" at the end of Shirley's advise re ground zero visits was a poorly worded slip...

I'm not insensitive, I meant have a good time in NYC!!!! I hope the person I responded to didn't take it that way.

Was there just this past Saturday. To be candid, the lights were not all that impressive! But we did like looking at the various tributes and memorials near the site. We were not able to get tickets for the Ground-0 platform, but I doubt we missed anything there.<BR><BR>Walking along Broadway, Vesey, Park, etc., and reading various things posted was an eerie experience, sort of like when walking "The Wall" in DC.<BR><BR>FYI, many of the subways have stops in the general area. The Fulton St stop on the #5 would be a good stop, as you walk E to the Seaport to get tix, and the platform is to the W of that stop. (no x in my e-ddress)

I know this has been debated before, and I thought some people were overly sensitive, but now I can see their point. There just seems something wrong with treating the area like a tourist attraction. <BR>It's like people are asking whether you should still go to Disney since Space Mountain is closed, or giving advice on what you did or didn't enjoy during your visit to the site: "Skip the platform, not much there, but whatever you do, don't miss the fantastic tributes nearby!" Doesn't feel right to me.

R-Travels<BR>Unbeleivable. You really don't get it. The purpose of the lights WAS not to impress tourists. It was meant as a tribute and a reminder of what once was and is no longer. If you want impressive lights, next time go to DisneyWorld for their Light Parade. <BR><BR>Let me save you some time, don't bother visiting Normandy. Omaha Beach isn't really that impressive.<BR><BR>And people wonder why New Yorkers are annoyed by the flippant attitudes shown by people who treat the WTC site as an attraction for thier entertainment and enjoyment.

Amen, Ryan and Maybeitsme. Well said.

Why don't you just go to a cemetary somewhere in New York....dig up a body....and sit and ogle like a bunch of yahoos. Make sure to take some pictures for Grandma back home.<BR><BR>People that go to the platform or anywhere around Ground Zero say "It's for closure" or some other gobblety-gook, but in reality, they are the same people who slow down and get a REEEAAAL good look at a car accident.

Allow people to travell to the site with their own emotions, please. Just simply stop offering unwanted guidance about how to feel. I was at the site - I flew in just to see it. Now, tell me how I was supposed to feel? Perhaps when you demonstrate that your emotions are as finely attuned as my own, I may listen ... until then, no. Allow people to feel what they feel, and lets stop this incessantly insulting discussion.

RnR,<BR>I'll tell you how to feel - like a ghoul and ashamed. You flew to New York to see a pile of rubble filled with dead people.

Maybe my choice of words was wrong.<BR><BR>Yes, I know it was a tribute. But there was no "heart" nor "soul" in the lighting display, while the "real" tributes, to me anyway, where all the posters, pictures, flowers, etc. down at the street. I had a big "lump in my throat" looking at them. No, I did not go there looking for an attraction, and I guess I still just don't see 88 3KW lights as being much more than that.<BR><BR>If anything, I wish that more people around the site HAD given the area the solumn dignity it deserves, rather than all the brash carnival atmosphere I observed. Of course, I saw the same behavior at the Vietnam Wall and Arlington too.

Nonsense, there's no carnival at the Vietnam Wall, lets be serious. And Rudy, my friend's mom was killed in the Pentagon - I paid my respects there, and then I came to NYC to do the same. Is that the best you can do?

My suggestion is to not act like it is the grand canyon and take pictures of your family in front of ground zero. Be respectful and treat it as the memorial to thousands of victims who perished there. Also, to the people who are working there, and dealing w/this tragedy on a daily basis, who it could offend seeing it treated as some kind of fun vacation site. Thanks.<BR>

I agree with Maybeitsme and Ryan. Ground Zero is not a tourist spot. If you are going to treat it like one, perhaps you don't get it and should not visit it. It makes me cringe when I hear out-of-towners putting that on their must see tourist list.

RnR, asking people to show some respect is quite a bit different than telling people how to feel. Just because you didn't see people acting like, as one post said, it was the family trip to the Grand Canyon, that doesn't mean other's, including me, have not witnessed this "party-atmosphere" behavior. <BR><BR>If you think people should be happy and joyous while visiting the site of a mass murder, that's your business. I gather from your post, that it is inappropriate for me, or anyone else who lives here, to suggest otherwise. <BR><BR>So, fell free to advise people to break out the portable blender and boom box. I mean, you might as well enjoy yourself.<BR><BR>

Well, Ryan, I regret you felt the need to say that. I believe you posted before, movingly, about personal losses at WTC. Don't let that get away from you. And is it really necessary to denigrate people who travelled to NYC to pay their respects? I think this thread is not the place I wish to be any longer.

No one here has any right to criticize the way other people pay their respects.<BR>That they feel the need to come to the place where it happened and pay those respects is fine with me and a lot of other people living in NY.<BR>No one should be called a ghoul.<BR>No one should have to explain why they felt the need to go to the WTC site.<BR>This is a travel forum and no one here was appointed judge of other peoples actions in something this personal.<BR>The lights were a sort of ghost of the buildings, they were not meant to be a flashy display,just a quiet memorial for a short time.<BR>I have been to DC a few times, I have seen families with small children leaving flowers at the wall, children walking around while their grandfathers or uncles stood and wept.There was never a fun or carnival atmosphere at the times I was there.<BR>

I'm really sorry about hurting the feelings of people who parade in front of the WTC site or the sculpture now in Battery Park mugging for photos. <BR><BR>Next time they build a memorial, maybe they can make it more interesting for the tourist crowd. Their wishes are clearly of more concern than 3,000 families wishes.

I guess I still just don't see 88 3KW lights as being much more than that.<BR><BR>If the poster lived here in NY, he would understand how wonderful the memorial was.<BR><BR>For a moment, we could almost believe the towers were still there and that 9/11 had never happened....