At the beginning of November, I took the train into Manhattan & down to Ground Zero. I had heard the security perimeter around the attack site was continuing to shrink, allowing a closer look. As I walked thru my neighborhood to the subway, I noticed more & more flags and memorial decorations honoring those who perished as well as the wounds inflicted on the city.

Arriving in lower Manhattan, the subway doors opened on the R train platform underground near City Hall, and I immediately was hit with the Trade Center smell. I'd smelled it in Brooklyn after the attack, as the fires continued to burn, but that had dissipated weeks ago. Here, it was still strong. A strange odorous mix of electrical fire and moldy dampness.

Walking south, I was stunned to find that, all these weeks later, thru wind & rain, there was still ash from the Trade Center clinging tightly to the leaves & bushes around City Hall. The ash had coated the whole area after the buildings fell, and wherever it settled, it stuck. As I looked around at the surrounding area, many of the abandoned buildings were also still thinly coated with it from top to bottom.

There were military, police, construction trucks, and hundreds of tourists. Some people had been critical of the tourists coming from all over the country & globe to see this, but I was glad to have them here. The global show of solidarity & sympathy was heartfelt & appreciated. It kept us from feeling we were in this alone. And the city's economy had taken a hit, so tourist dollars were a help too. Early on, they had been arresting people trying to photograph the area, but eventually they realized that the intentions were generally sympathetic.

At one point I could look straight across town, past a memorial covered barricade and see the glass domed World Financial Center's Winter Garden, one of my favorite buildings, with its high ceilings and huge indoor palm trees. It was the first time I could see it from here, usually it would be blocked from view by the Trade Center.

Walking further down Broadway, I looked between 2 buildings and saw the remaining shell of 5 World Trade Center, most of which had collapsed in flames soon after the towers fell. It stood silently facing a 16 acre gap of open sky, over the wreckage.

All around the cross streets to the Trade Center, the walls were covered in notes, prayers, pictures & memorials from all over the world. People were writing & posting the whole time I was there. Looking above the signs I noticed there was even writing on the building windows. They were also still coated in the Trade Center ash.