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In New York

View from the room

Once a year, around Easter, I usually take a red-eye flight from SeaTac to JFK to spend a few days in New York.
From the airport I take A Train towards Manhattan, and get off the first stop in Lower Manhattan, I meander through the massive construction zone, busy traffic and pedestrians; the city is surprisingly active for that time of the morning.
I find my hotel through the chaos; it’s a welcome sanctuary. I love it here; it may not be the swankiest hotel in all of Manhattan, but they know me here, I’ve written about this hotel before.
Uncle George works here, I met him the first time I stayed here and he instantly became my uncle by virtue of the fact that he too is originally from Ghana.
He’s been with the hotel for almost a decade now, and he has stories to tell… boy, does he have stories to tell…
He was working the morning the towers were hit, and was out of a job for several months after the hotel shut down for repairs.
His stories of the morning of the attacks are gut wrenching.

Ground Zero - NYC

My room in the ‘sky’ has views of the Hudson, Jersey City and Hoboken, the views are splendid, but it’s the view looking down that gets to you – Ground Zero
It’s a colossal construction site, it looks deceptively like any other site, you can’t tell what transpired here by just looking at it.
Yet, it’s mesmerizing I point my lens down towards the construction and I can’t stop snapping away.
It’s surreal; this is the closest I’ve come to a place where that many people have perished.

WTC Construction

WTC Building

The One World Trade Center tower is almost complete, it stands tallest in Lower Manhattan, and has already melded into the skyline.
For the next few days I do the same things I do when I visit New York; the High Line, Central Park, Chelsea, and restaurants, shows, galleries and places on my to-do list, and every night I return to my hotel room exhausted.
Restless, I steady my camera on a ledge and try to capture as many images of the construction site as I can, in between I think of that morning a decade ago.
Everyone’s got their September 11 story; everyone remembers where they were.
Uncle George doesn’t like remembering too much, he’s looking forward, he says.

Ground Zero Construction

WTC Construction

Ground Zero at Dusk

Ground Zero - Raining

WTC - Construction - Ground Zero

WTC Construction

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