New York - Ground Zero

While in New York we visited Ground Zero, though the site itself currently can't be seen because of the boards put up while redevelopment and construction take place. St Paul's Chapel, which lies just opposite the site, is famous because when the towers came down, despite detritus and debris for streets around, the chapel didn't gain even the slightest mark of damage not even to the glass or woodwork. Since the 911 St Paul's has become the centre of remembrance for the the tragic losses suffered. The chapel is filled with letters of condolence and remorse. Though for me the most striking thing was the red vestment. The red vestment is a trainee priests robes that was left there and over time has had the badges of all the different fire, police, paramedic, and other search and rescue groups, from all over the world, that came to help, pinned to it. The vestment is hanging on a bust, completely covered in badges, and there are badges piled up at its base, because there was so many that wanted to help, and right on top of the bust in pride of place, is a police helmet from the Northumbria Police. I think this moved me more than anything else because seeing signs that people from my own local police department flew the 2000 miles to New York to help in the search and rescue, showed how much it meant to the world as a whole, and made it personal to me. In about a year and a half it'll be 10 years since the towers came down, and it's still effecting us now, at St Paul's there were still very clear signs that emotions are still very raw. Just stepping in there you could feel it. As a species we supposedly don't have any supernatural talents or 6th senses, but it's at times like that I doubt it, there are very few people that would of denied feeling all the emotion there.