My Visit to the 9/11 Museum

“Hey, I have an extra bagel sandwich if you guys want it.”

The young lady at Leon Bagel’s offered this to my girlfriend after complimenting her purse. I took it upon myself to reciprocate the kind act that was done to us. So I waited to share the extra bagel sandwich with the seemingly homeless women (she had a cart full of clothes so I assumed).

“I don’t need your food or money! I have my own stuff!”

Quickly reminding me, that I am in the one and only, New York City folks.

The plan was just to visit the memorials but with freezing temperatures and with spiked curiosity from the memorials, we went into the museum.

I have never had to check in through security for a museum— maybe that’s due to my lack of experience in high end museums— but it was very clear that we were about to enter a experience, and God, did we. We had to descend into the dim layer where the museum began, signifying that the experience began.

The museum started with the sign “8:46am.”

That was the time the first plane struck the first Twin Tower of the World Trade Center. I was roughly 5 months old at the time.

The museum does a great job of immersing you into the chaos leading up to the day, the actual day, and the post effects and uncovered connections. The first plane struck at 8:46am and every minute leading up to the subsequent crashes was heart thumping, blood rushing, mixed with mass chaos and confusion like never before. 

I was overwhelmed by the amount of perspectives and angles from that day. You have the:

• individual view

• the emergency response view

• the federal government view

• the military response

• the aviation personnel response 

And within each view was thousands of personal stories. As the museum walks you minute by minute, I was immersed in the chaos and shared confusion that the world felt in those moments.

The museum had audio recording of individuals on certain flights calling their families as the planes lowered to cell service level; the most bone chilling of it all was the audio recordings of one of the terrorists as he told those on the flights that they had a bomb on plane and that they were going to turn the plane around. One of the terrorist actually made a mistake and broadcasted that statement to the towers instead of the plane and caused confusion to the towers and other pilots; there was even a recording of a terrorist saying “Allah is the greatest” before he crashed the plane.

When I originally booked to go to New York City I had no intentions of going to the museum. But for such a monumentous and tragic event for the U.S. and frankly the world, it was important for me in my opinion to understand how it shaped today’s world.

The museum had footage of the terrorists