Touring the 9/11 museum, 17 years after attacks

It was a Tuesday, almost seventeen years ago, and I was a student in Galway. No lectures were scheduled that afternoon so, with free time on my hands, I stopped into Golden Discs, on Eglinton Street, to flick through CDs.

In the corner of the store, I half-noticed a television showing one of those action blockbusters. It seemed to be a big-budget affair, with panoramic shots of New York skyscrapers engulfed in smoke.

When the shop assistant turned up the audio, the realisation dawned that this was not a movie but live news footage. That the skyscrapers were not Hollywood props but the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center.

Across the street in The Cellar Bar, the big TV screens were all turned to Sky News, and I spent most of the afternoon there as the burning towers wilted into rubble.

Among those watching at the next table was Dana Rosemary Scallon, Ireland's first Eurovision winner, who at the time was a Member of the European Parliament.

Even 3,000 miles away, the gravity and historical significance of the attacks was immediately apparent. As the afternoon wore on, thoughts started to turn to the US response and the uncertainty over what might happen next.

The devastation that had been caused in such a densely populated urban environment (some 50,000 people had worked in the World Trade Center alone) meant it took a long time for the dust to settle, both literally and figuratively, at Ground Zero.

In 2011, a wonderful public memorial plaza was unveiled at the site, which contains two huge waterfalls and reflecting pools set within the footprints of the Twin Towers.

The names of each of the terrorists' victims are inscribed on the border around the pools. By the time you get close enough to read them, the sound of the waterfall has drowned out the din of the big city.

A museum, the National September 11 Memorial Museum, also opened at the site in May 2014. It has been visited by more than 12.5 million people. Earlier this month, I added one more to that number.

A visit to this museum – like most things in New York City – is not cheap. I booked my ticket over the phone the day before and it came to $26, or €22. An audio guide seemed to cost extra, so I opted to explore without it.

The vast museum contains some 110,000 square feet of exhibition space so, if time allowed, a visitor could easily spend half a day or more browsing through the various exhibits.

The displays begin with the last-ever photograph of the undamaged Twin Towers, against the backdrop of a perfect blue sky, just before the first plane hit. Then there are voices and faces of people recalling where they were and how they reacted when they first heard news of the attack.

From there, the museum gradually presents the history of the World Trade Center from its construction, and briefly-held distinction as the world's tallest building, up to the 2001 attacks and their aftermath.

There are some striking artefacts on display. Thick steel beams from the towers that had been mangled by the impact of the attack. A fire truck that had been half-crushed by debris. A dust-covered display from a nearby clothes shop, which had been preserved exactly as it was in the immediate aftermath of the towers' collapse.

Among the interesting items, in a glasscase, is a fragment of a Bible which had been fused to a piece of metal in the ruins of the South Tower.

Its pages did not burn and, when it was discovered by a firefighter in March 2002, it was lying open on a page with the phrase “an eye for an eye” followed by “... resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.”

The museum was very busy on the day I was there, but there was a quiet, reverential atmosphere among the visiting crowds. Adding to this was the fact that the main emphasis of the museum was, rightly, on paying tribute to the nearly 3,000 innocent people who were murdered in the September 11 attacks.

Their photos and personal stories were told in an interactive 'In Memoriam' hall. There were poignant recordings of voicemail messages left by people who had been on the hijacked planes and called their loved ones, saying they weren't sure exactly what was happening.

And there was a section about the people whose lives came to an unthinkable end when they decided they had no choice but to plunge from the smoke and fire-filled floors towards the top of the towers.

One written account from a witness in a nearby building described seeing a woman standing on a ledge for what seemed an eternity. She then held down her skirt and stepped off it.

“I thought, how human, how modest to hold down her skirt before she jumped,” said the eyewitness.

It was once said that a single death is a tragedy, but a million deaths is a statistic. The greatest strength of the 9/11 museum is that it reminds visitors of the personal stories of the individuals whose lives were so cruelly ended on that harrowing day.