Courtesy of Carolyn Kaster
Bradleigh-Ann Walker
Senior Con
tent Editor
Yesterday (May 15), President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama visited the ground zero museum in New York City for its dedication ceremony.
The museum is a tribute to those lives lost in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, as well as the 2001 terrorist attack that destroyed those iconic buildings in Manhattan known as the Twin Towers.
The exhibit casts an atmosphere of terror, but also one of hope and strength. Visitors can walk past walls of photographs depicting those who lost their lives in the attacks, footage of the buildings as they collapsed, and even a damaged fire truck.
“It’s an honor to join in your memories, to recall and to reflect, but above all to reaffirm the true spirit of 9/11 — love, compassion, sacrifice — and to enshrine it forever in the heart of our nation,” President Obama told the families gathered there; among them survivors of the attacks, relatives of those who were killed, and emergency workers.
He told a touching, heartbreaking story about Welles Crowther, who worked at the World Trade Center. Crowther became known infamously as the “man in the red bandanna”, because witnesses described him as such when they saw him leading fellow employees from the south tower during the September 11 attacks. Unfortunately, he died when the tower fell.
A red bandanna that once belonged to Crowther is now in the ground zero museum.
“It was very hard for me to come here today, but I wanted to do so, so I could say thank you to his parents,” Ling Young said during the ceremony. She was one of the victims rescued by Crowther.
The President summed up the museum’s sentiment well with this statement:
“Like the great wall and bedrock that embrace us today, nothing can ever break us. Nothing can change who we are as Americans.”
New York Mayor Bill De Blasio, Governor Andrew Cuomo, and past mayors and governors were also in attendance.
The museum opens to the public on Wednesday, May 21.
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