Our Accidental Visit to Ground Zero

myFOXdetroit.com - In the summer of 2001, my wife Carolyn and I had planned to visit her brother Michael in New York City before 9/11. Like everyone else, we had no idea how fate would intervene.

We flew into LaGaurdia a week or so after the attack.  I don't remember the exact date, but it was the first day the airport was open. 

We took a taxi into the Midtown Manhattan Tunnel.  Soldiers armed with machine guns vetted us at the toll booth.

During the trip, which is just over a mile long, we saw only one other car.  One.  It was surreal.  It can typically take anywhere from 10-minutes to a half hour to get through the tunnel. On this day, it took about a minute.

Where is everybody?  Carolyn and I got quiet , looked around and held hands.

Michael lived in Chelsea in lower Manhattan.... near 23rd Street and 8th Avenue.  It's about 20 blocks from the Trade Center.

When we got out of the cab, there was a kind of haze in the air.  A first breath and a smell of smoke.  Sort of like smoke, it was more like when your vacuum cleaner bag is too full and kicks up dust... combined with the smell of a blown fuse.  This sounds crazy, but it was kind of sickening-sweet.

We saw Michael and it was long hugs all around.  So glad he was OK.  He knew people who died.  He talked about how weird it was walking around and not seeing the towering landmark in the distance.

Like the moon in the sky, the Towers were always there and for many New Yorkers he told us, it offered a sense of navigation.  Now they're gone.

Later we walked down to 20th street  and looked down 8th or 7th Avenue where we could still see the smoldering fire at Ground Zero.

The smoke continued billow and spread over Manhattan.  At night, you cold see an orange glow of the fire that still burned.

The bulk of our visit was spent with Michael and his partner Alfred.  We tried to be as normal as we could be, dining, spending time in Central Park.  I think we saw a movie.

Then on Sunday, we all let loose with a long a conversation about the tragic events.  The anger, the sadness, the shock that all Americans were feeling.  In New York, it felt personal.

The one thing we all agreed on is to not let the attack change our outlook on life.  To cherish our freedoms and to not live in fear.  Life must go on, this is the best anecdote to the horrible attacks.

Carolyn and I were scheduled to leave the next day and even though she had been to New York many times, she had never seen the Statue of Liberty.

So to honor our pledge to not fear and to move on, we decided to go see her.  The Ellis Island Ferry was closed beause of the attacks.  Michael suggested the Staten Island Ferry, as you can still get a great view of Lady Liberty.  He and Alfred stayed home.

We took the subway toward Battery Park.  This is where fate lent a hand.  Carolyn and I were on a track that took us inside the perrimeter that guarded ground zero.  Somewhere near Wall Street we were forced to get off the train. 

As we departed I noticed how many people had suitcases, luggage and empty containers with them.  Then it hit me, these people were being let back into to their buildings to collect belongings. I read somewhere in the New York Times that morning how the city was scheduling times for people to get into their residences or offices that were closed because of the attacks and get their stuff.

Now we were among them.  Carolyn and I walked down Wall Street toward the Trade Center.  It was though time stood still.

The street was white and grey with ash.  Store front windows were blown out and in many cases the merchandise inside was still on the shelves or scattered about.

No looting here.  This is just outside of Ground Zero, but well inside the military permitter that was set up several blocks away.  I assume you needed some kind of credential to get inside, but here we were.

As we continued to walk down the street, I could see hundreds of hand and body prints in the ash on the side of buildings.  I pictured the image I saw on TV, people getting swallowed up in the storm cloud of dust. We were looking at the evidence. 

We were just a couple of blocks from Ground Zero and the smoke from the fire was getting thick.  We slightly could feel the heat of what seemed like a giant blast furnace. We stood in awe as we looked at the twisted metal that still stood eerily in the haze.

Then a voice " hey, what are you doing here?"

We explained and the NYC Police Officer told us to get out of here and gave us directions on how to catch the Staten Island Ferry.

We walked down to Battery Park, where the ground was covered in camouflage tents that housed the soldiers deployed.

We saw a barge in the Hudson River that was filled with steel beams from Trade Center or one of the buildings destroyed in Ground Zero.  We learned later the barges were sent to New Jersey where people sifted through them to find, well, whatever it is they could find.

We boarded the Staten Island Ferry in looked with awe at the Statue of Liberty.