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In November of 2001, on a Thursday walk downtown, Alex, Steve, and I made the decision to support New York City's call for tourism by taking a weekend trip to the big apple. The odd part was we had decided that, since we were only all free that weekend, we'd leave the next day. Alex secured some Greyhound tickets and we left at 10:30PM from Toronto on Friday night, arriving in the early morning hours at the Port Authority. Our trip was amazing, and some other slideshows will follow, but the most sobering event of our weekend was, of course, our trip to Ground Zero. Only two months after the attack we weren't sure what we would see.

Explaining the atmosphere of that city when we left the subway is difficult. Complete and utter silence, odd only due to the sheer number of people who were at the site. We stopped to speak with some Canadian firefighters from Coquitlam and Mississauga, who had come to attend a funeral for some of their fallen comrades. The site itself was secured with covered fences and attendants who were responsible for keeping the curious onlookers away. You'll see them in some of these pictures as I threw caution to the wind to take some closer shots. Part of me felt guilty, part of me felt awed, and all of me felt very, very sad. The thought that two 110-story buildings had been reduced to this pile of dirt and rubble was almost too difficult to accept.

A trip around the corner saw us pass a local Church. The Church was not being used for religious services, it had been converted to a rest area for the volunteers who were giving of their time to assist in any way they could. We saw coughing, dirty firemen and policemen pass by us to get inside for a lie down and a drink of water. Our sadness was only briefly exchanged with adoration and appreciation for what these men were doing - searching, clearing, and just hoping that more bodies could be found to help more families achieve some closure. Signs from children, friends, wives, husbands, mothers, and fathers littered the walls alongside flags and messages from schools, thanking these brave men for their contributions. People quietly sobbed to themselves, some just stared blankly.

When we had finally decided to head the other way and back towards Times Square we passed a store full of people. This is the store you'll see at the end of the slideshow. The owners had returned a week or so after September 11th to find their locked store absolutely full of dust and dirt, rendering all the material inside unsellable. Where others simply disposed of their existing merchandise and ordered new product, these owners had turned the front right side of their store into a memorial - capturing a moment frozen in time behind glass. The clothes you see there are exactly as they had found them upon their return.

I hope you enjoy the slideshow, it was hard to make. It's still hard to watch.

Quick technical notes - to view these you'll need the Macromedia Flash Player to view them, and they are definitely meant for high-speed connections. If you find the sound or video choppy simply leave the computer for a bit and let them load through once. When you come back, refresh the page and it should play nicely out of your cache. I recommend pressing F11 when the video loads. You'll see it in full screen. When you're done, press F11 again and close the window to return to this page.

World Trade Center, November 2001

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