Sunday Morning
/ CBS News
September 11th
Today, of course, is a day of remembrancefor the 9/11 attacks on America.Fifteen years later, the wreckage of the Twin Towers has long since been cleared, and a new tower has risen in their place.Even so, sorrow and healing share the site in equal measure.With Martha Teichner, now, we pay our respects:
Are the cascades of water at the site of ground zero the tears of a nation weeping, or a soothing rain forever trying towash away the horror of what happened here?
This is where the Twin Towers stood.Looking down, you cannot see the bottom ...
And you cannot come here and forgetfor a moment that achingly perfect blue-sky morning -- September 11, 2001, whenthe planes hit … when the towers fell ... when nearly three thousand peopledied on this spot. It is hallowedground.
But fifteen years later, life coexistswith death.
- Complete CBSNews.com coverage: Remembering 9/11
Judith Dupré hasspent more than 20 years documenting the World Trade Center site, and haswritten a book about its transformation since 9/11: “One World Trade Center” (Little, Brown).
“This project is as much a partof 9/11 as the falling towers were,” she said. “It’s all on acontinuum. Life is for the living.People need to live. It’s a wayof honoring the dead.”
Since this memorial opened in 2011,more than 28 million people have gazed at the names of the 9/11 dead -- thosekilled at the World Trade Center, and also the 40 who died at Shanksville, Pa.,and 184 others at the Pentagon.
Lee Ielpi’s son, Jonathan, was 29 -- afireman killed in the South Tower. Lee says having his son’s name here means“hopefully, they’re not gonna forget him.”
He recalled how he brought the firstlady of Japan to the site, where she performed a ritual with thewater. “Ididn’t realize -- huh, it’s like holy water,” he told Teichner.
Ielpi was one of the so-called“band of dads” -- retired firefighters who raced to the Trade Centersite to help and then spent months digging through the rubble for the bodies oftheir sons. Of them all, only his son was found.
Fifteen years on, Ielpi is still here,an advocate for Sept. 11th families and co-founder of the 9/11 Tribute Center,where his son’s coat and helmet are now on display.
“When I had the coat, I could hugit,” Lee said.
“9/11 is a day that thousands ofpeople were murdered. Jonathan and my buddies were doin’ what they loved to do.The birthday and my son’s gear … difficult.”
On May 30, 2002, nine months after theWorld Trade Center attacks, the site had been cleared except for one nearly-60-tonbeam, by then covered with the names and photos and jottings of the people whohad done the clearing. And just as it had each time human remains were found, activity at ground zero stopped when thatlast column was removed and reverently borne away.
But twelve years later,when the 9/11 Memorial Museumopened in 2014, there it was, the beam-- the building built aroundit.
When you go there, it all comes back …the feeling you had that day if you lived in New York City … a sickness, almost.
You’re haunted again by the faces ofthe lost … all the smiling people whose stories have to be told for them here.
On Friday mornings, Greg Carafello isa volunteer docent. He’s been here since it opened. “I’m a survivor of TwoWorld Trade,” he said. “I was here that day, and I owned a businessinside the building.”
The ownerof a digital printing business in the South Tower, he nearly died on 9/11. His office was destroyed.
And yet herehe is, week after week, right where it happened.
Teichner asked what he gets out ofvolunteering at the site.
“I get a freedom from that day,”Carafello replied. “There’s a certain luggage that you carry since thatday, and for me, it’s a freedom to speak to the people and to share theexperience. But also, it’s just cathartic. It lets me feel better in sharing mystory with them.”
He’s with another printing company now, andcould work anywhere. But his office is on the85th floor of the new 1 World Trade Center.
Carafello is theonlyTwin Towersbusinessmanwilling to take a chance on the site again.
“It’s an act of pride. Comingback to one of the greatest buildings that I’ve ever been involved with, as faras looking at the way it’s built and the beauty of it, I think it is a salute to what we do in America.”
It is1776 feet high, counting its spire.And like practically everything else on the 16-acre site, it didn’t happenwithout fights over its design, over its name (One World Trade Center insteadof the original “Freedom Tower”), over what if, God forbid, therewere another attack.
“One World Trade Center is built arounda concrete core,” said Dupré.“That coreis made of the strongest concrete ever used anywhere on a skyscraper. And so should anything happen, all of the occupants, aswell as all the communication systems, everything you might need, it’s allprotected inside of the core.”
There are ghostly nods to the Twin Towers. But what is new here at what used to be called ground zero has beenbuilt to be beautiful. The Oculus is a train station and a shopping mall.
“When I came in here the firsttime, it wasalmostheavenly, in a way,” said photographer Daniel Jones.
“Sunday Morning”commissioned Jones to take pictures of the Oculus.
Fifteen years after 9/11, the WorldTrade Center is still a work in progress, with as many as three buildings notyet even begun. The cost: $15 billion and counting.
Too much? Or a necessary down paymenton healing?
Dupré said, “26,000 people worked on this site. They gave it their all, and in the process ofgiving it their all, of doing backbreaking work, they also were thebeneficiaries of the redemption that comes with that. They were aftercompletion. They were after wholeness,and there isn’t a single person that did not say they worked on this project onbehalf of all those who died.”
It is a place to look down and weep … butit is also a place to look up and rejoice.
For more info:
- National September 11 Memorial, New York City | Ticket information
- 9/11 Tribute Center
- “One World Trade Center: Biography of the Building”by Judith Dupré (Little, Brown)
- judithdupre.com
- “Oculus” World Trade Center Transportation Hub
- Daniel Jones Photography
- In:
- World Trade Center
