RED, blue, orange, yellow; the 10,000 Japanese origami cranes came in all colours.
A symbol of healing and peace, they hang silently above a staircase at the Tribute WTC Visitor Center on the south side of Ground Zero.
These paper cranes, according to the explanatory message on the wall, were made by Japanese school kids, families, friends and colleagues of Fuji Bank staff who were killed on that September day six years ago.
The Visitor Center, a project of the Sept 11 Families’ Association, has had 280,000 people walking through its glass doors since it opened last year.
But as Americans mourn the sixth anniversary of the terrorist attack, others wonder about a “Sept 11 fatigue” come this day every year.
The New York Times ran a story last Sunday headlined “As 9/11 draws near, a debate rises: How much tribute is enough?”
“Is all of it necessary, at the same decibel level – still?” the daily asked.
However, as they say, different strokes for different folks.
“There is such a variety of emotions involved. Some people get angry, and others may not understand that,” said Sept 11 Families’ Association chief executive officer Jennifer Adams.
There really was no set way to mourn, no one formula to grieve.
“The pain will always be there. It’s just that people have different ways of expressing it,” she said.
Adams, who did not think there was emotional fatigue, found that people were still very much moved by the events of Sept 11.
“Some of the visitors who come here said they somehow felt that they ‘met’ the people who died,” she said in an interview.
At one section of the Visitor Center where there was a huge montage of the victims’ photographs besides a list of their names, four boxes of tissue paper were placed on the bench.
“This gallery can be a very emotional experience,” she said, when asked about the tissue paper.
Adams, who lost her buddy in the tragedy, understands the sorrow. She is no longer so absorbed in investment banking, previously her focus.
“My prerogatives have changed,” she said, preferring now to focus on the people whom she encounters in the course of her job. When the tragedy struck, she became a volunteer, working from the tents, handing out gloves and granola bars to the fire-fighters.
Lee Ielpi, association vice-president, also debunks any talk about emotional fatigue.
“It’s easy for anybody to just say ‘move on’. But this had been the most serious terrorist attack in the country’s history. Don’t forget that 1,145 people are still listed as missing,” he said.
Ielpi himself was not spared the heartbreak. He lost his eldest son, fire-fighter Jonathan, then a 29-year-old.
His youngest son, who has two university degrees, recently become a fire-fighter as well.
“You might ask me if I had discouraged him from doing so. Why would I want to do that? Do I have fear in the back of my mind? I am a father,” he said, answering his own question.
He is reminded of his eldest boy almost ceaselessly, one way or another. “I hear my son all the time. Every day, 9/11 smacks you in your face.”
To illustrate his point, he asked: “What is the emergency telephone number? Nine one one.”
Still, in a way, he said the people had moved on, even those whose lives had been directly impacted by 9/11.
“Otherwise, you wouldn’t have seen so many thousands of foundations and scholarships being established by families of the victims,” he said.
Moving along, too, is the building schedule of the three World Trade Center towers. Construction begins next year.
“We want to develop this place as a 24/7 neighbourhood and not just a financial centre anymore,” said Avi Schick, who is chairman of the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation.
Schick and several other representatives from architect's firms and from Silverstein Properties (a Manhattan-based real estate developer assigned to redevelop the WTC site) gave a press update on the designs and construction schedule of the towers on Thursday.
Also in the works is the National Sept 11 Memorial and Museum which has been described as “the symbol of the recovery, and the heart of a rebuilt and revitalised Lower Manhattan.”
Sept 11 isn’t just a memory.
