I flew to Manhattan for my 17th birthday in 2002 to see my sister during Spring Break. Years later after she left the city, we returned together in 2010 to see the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.
When I was 16 years old, my older sister Lesli decided that she wanted to go to acting school. What better place than New York City? She moved in over the weekend to a little apartment with a view of the World Trade Center in the distance. For four nights, she enjoyed seeing the Twin Towers all lit up on the skyline. She woke up Tuesday morning, turned on the news as she usually did and saw an image of one of the Towers smoking. She opened her blinds, greeted her cat sitting in the window while sure enough off in the distance, one of the Towers was smoking. She went to the bathroom and when she came back out, the second Tower had already been hit and was smoking. She stood there in stunned silence, confused. She knew something was happening but she didn’t know what to do. And yet, something inside her knew it was important to document history unfolding before her eyes. So, she did what a lot of people would do – she took a photo.
Ground Zero in 2002
Seven months after 9/11 in April, I flew up to New York City during Spring Break to stay with her in Manhattan for my 17th birthday. I landed in Newark and saw military men patrolling the airport terminal with M16s. Lesli met up with me at the airport after her class and we took the train into the city together. It was fun hanging out in her apartment at night and spending the day by myself exploring the city while she was in acting classes.
Later that week, together, my sister and I went to the Ground Zero site. There was an enclosed, glass viewing platform next to the site. I was taken aback at the gaping hole in the earth, many stories deep into the ground. I remember standing there in stunned silence. It seemed unfathomable that this could be repaired and rebuilt. I snapped a few photos, but unfortunately the photos from that day have been lost to time.
There was still ripped metal and huge piles of debris being hauled up out of the pit. And there, soaring out of the ground was the concrete pillar that remained, adorned with that iconic cross, 2 steel beams that had been discovered in the debris still joined together that became a symbol of hope and rebirth.
Ground Zero in 2010
Nine years later on a whim, Lesli found an unbelievable deal online with airfare and a hotel in Newark. So we went together in November of 2010 to see the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade with her 5-year old son. The train from Newark arrived at a subway station in downtown New York City at what had been and remained the WTC station after all these years. As before, there was an enclosed viewing platform to see the construction at the memorial site. At this time, it was 291 days out from opening on September 11, 2011.
Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade
After spending a day sightseeing, we met up for coffee with an old friend from her acting classes. When we came out, we got to see some of the floats lined up across the street ready to roll in the parade the next day. What’s cool about that is that we weren’t planning on getting to the parade early, so it was a great way to still see some of the floats up close without a sea of people. It’s surely an exciting time to be in the city!
On parade day, we got there mid-morning and stood among the crowd to enjoy a few floats roll by with a chill in the air and eventually made our way to a restaurant to share a Thanksgiving meal together. While Lesli had a traditional turkey plate, I opted for a classic New York meatball sub. Hey, when in Rome.
America’s biggest department store
The day before the parade, we wandered over to the historic Macy’s at 34th Street and Herald Square that has been a National Historic Landmark since 1978. The store is absolutely humongous! It is still an old, historic structure and with over 2 million square feet across 10 floors, it’s the largest department store in the US. It was exciting to see it decked out for Christmas!
My sisters have always been my original travel buddies, but particularly Lesli as I became an adult. I took two of my favorite photos with her on this trip, thanks to Macy’s. Seeing the parade together and sharing a Thanksgiving meal in New York City was a unique memory to make together. I’m glad I got to share this story. It was nice reliving this trip and pulling up memories that seemed to slip away until I wrote it down and pulled out the photos that remain.
The moral of the story: Photograph everything. Organize and maintain the photos that matter. You never know how much those photos will mean to you years on into the future.
