9/11 Memorial & Museum

In September, I took a rather spontaneous trip to my parents' house for my mother's birthday. Dad had a whole weekend in New York City planned, complete with some surprises, some of which I spoiled, some of which he did. Saturday morning, however, we journeyed to the 9/11 Memorial to visit the museum. All of us had been to the memorial, though not together, but none of us had been to the museum.

I wasn't quite sure what I was expecting. The museum was largely underground, which is not surprising, given New York City. Inside, there was a section about the highlights in the newspaper that day, and a big section on where the president was and the securities that were immediately put in place for him. He actually wanted to come back when he found out what happened, but his advisers suggested he stay in Florida because killing him could be the hijackers' goal, and the death of the President was not what the nation needed.

There were large pieces of steel hanging that were from floors 96-99 in the North Tower, a TV antennae from top of one of the towers, and an elevator engine from the North Tower. There were the remains of an FDNY engine that was crushed when one of the towers collapsed.

There was a large wall where an artist had painted many blue pieces of paper together to recreate the color the sky was that day.

There was another wall that I found of particular interest. When the plan for the twin towers first began, a structural wall was built below the foundation to prevent the Hudson River from flooding Manhattan should something ever happen to the buildings themselves. Shortly after the towers were hit, apparently many were concerned that the wall would give away, and cause even further damage to lower Manhattan. When the towers collapsed, this concern increased dramatically. But miraculously, the wall stayed standing, and now in the museum, they've exposed it and have displayed it and the story. It's quite the sight.

We saw all of these pieces, pictures, walls - evidence of what happened. We walked through a room with all of the victims' photographs. But none of this really hit me the way this information should have, and we had seen almost the whole place.

We had one room left we hadn't yet been in, but there was only one entrance and apparently, everybody else had decided to go there at the same time as us. At this point, Pete is pushing Mom in her wheelchair, and the four of us haven't seen Kyle in quite some time. We make our way in and it's really slow moving because there are so many people in here and we've got Mom's wheelchair. Dad's texting Kyle, who quickly joins us, after navigating through the people. He says he was waiting for us at the entrance, but none of us saw him and he didn't see us. The room we're in is the only place in the museum he hasn't seen yet. After trying to move ahead and stay close to the wall so Mom can see the displays without people obstructing her view, we decide to cop out after noticing an exit door away from the flow of people.

The four of us have no idea where we have come out, but Kyle does, and informs us we have to see the sports room. I thought we had seen the whole place, but apparently not. I'm excited, which I feel shame for, as I'm in a museum based on an American tragedy, but I love sports! Woo! We were also there on the anniversary of the day Mike Piazza hit the home run for the New York Mets in the first baseball game played in New York City after 9/11. Many today refer to that home run as the beginning of the healing for New York and the United States. What else is there to know? I was excited to say the least.

Everything sports was right in this room. In the front, they actually showed the prime-time broadcast of ESPN, in which the announcers said in light of today's events, sports of all kinds had been canceled or postponed, everything from MLB games, to the Week 2 of the NFL, from preseason hockey, to NASCAR, and college games. Then there was a display of what each sport did as a result of the events of 9/11 - how long games were canceled for, what tributes they held, the memories they made for victims' families, with an emphasis on New York teams, of course.

There was so much there. The room wasn't that big, but there was so much there. There was a large spotlight for the Yankees, which is probably the biggest New York team. One of the pieces they had with the Yankees was a handwritten letter from the daughter of a victim who was a huge fan of Derek Jeter. When the Yankees returned to New York, she and her family were invited to the game, and there was a picture of her family with Jeter himself. The Yankees went to the World Series that year, and although they lost, players and fans look back on it now and realize it wasn't about winning then. It was about moving on.

Then there were my Mets. The Mike Piazza home run is legend and I was literally shocked to find out I had the date wrong. It was on the 21st of September, not the 22nd (which I really should have known, Mom's birthday and all). They showed the broadcast of his at-bat and the whole home run trot, complete with Gary Cohen's commentary. There were multiple news articles written about it, and while the pitcher did not throw him a home run pitch on purpose, he acknowledges how gratifying the home run was for the Mets and all of New York. They also had the jersey Mike Piazza wore that night on display.

Interestingly enough, those games were not the first MLB games after 9/11. Both the Mets and Yankees returned to the field in away games before they returned to New York. There wasn't much said about those away games they first played after the postponement.

In the NFL, the season had only just begun. All games from Week 2 were postponed to the end of the regular season and the postseason was pushed one week back, and all players wore a patch in honor of those who passed in the tragedy. There wasn't much focus on football, or at least I didn't focus on it.

There was a large section I found very interesting on NASCAR. They were very adamant that they did not want to cancel the race scheduled for the following Sunday. Therefore, they postponed it to the only week without a race scheduled - Thanksgiving weekend. This change meant the race on September 23 was the first after 9/11, 12 days later. One of the racers, I don't remember who, in those 12 days, removed every decal and sponsorship from his car and had it completed repainted as the American flag. I learned that normally, drivers have to go through an extensive process to approve a paint change, which generally takes three weeks. But this driver managed to complete the process and have the car painted and ready to race in 12 days. The hood of the car after the race was on display.

We started going through this room as a family together, but I lingered listening to the ESPN broadcast at the front, and then even more so watching Piazza's home run multiple times. I was reading an article about the NASCAR race when Dad came back and found me, as the rest of the family had already left the room. I left with him to catch up with them, and therefore skipping the entire last display.

As we left the room, I made a comment to Dad about how this was the only room in the whole place that truly impacted me emotionally. Dad agreed. And it's because the rest of the museum we had already seen was about the structure of the buildings, how they were impacted, how they were destroyed. But when we came to the sports section, it became about moving on. It was about getting past what happened and working towards the future.

I'm not here to say that's what sports do. That's not true. But when a tragedy hits, everyone strives for the return of normal, and sports games bring that. I remember when Hurricane Matthew hit two years ago. It was two weeks after the remnants of another tropical storm had come through and flooded the roads on a Wednesday afternoon, closing schools for the rest of the week. We had been back in school for only two weeks, just 10 days, when Hurricane Matthew came in on Saturday night and did it all again, only worse. Roads flooded, trees were uprooted, and bridges broke. And when I was allowed to go back to work on Wednesday, I felt that joy of returning to normal. I had already lounged around the house for three days, and I didn't need any more of that.

The events of September 11th, while different, were the same in that way. New York needed to return to normal. The United States needed to return to normal. So our sports games returned.

And with them, hope.