I woke up this morning with an immediate desire to see the sun come up over New York City. My dad lives not that far from what may be the best overlook of the city, and so I hopped into the car and began my quest. Like a fool, I decided that I could find the location from memory, despite not having been to the place in at least eight years. After much circling and a good guess, I finally found the entrance. The light was still in good shape due to the excellent clouds.
This spot has been turned into a September Eleventh memorial, as it had and continues to have an unobstructed view of the entire NYC skyline. 9/11 has slowly drifted from my mind, but this spot is still fresh with the events of a decade prior. There are several parking spots from which you can watch the sun come up without having to leave your car. As I was walking to the overlook, I noticed two people in separate cars, both of them looking out at the horizon. All three of us were in different spots when the twin towers collapsed, and all three of us were impacted in different ways, yet I have no doubt that the both of them, at some point during the time they spent watching the sun rise, had thoughts about the events that so characterized the years to follow. If you look in the cluster of building to the right, you can see the Freedom Tower One World Trade Center, with cranes perched all the way up top. I can remember standing here looking at smoke coming from ground zero, a long grey cloud which hung in the sky for so long that it eventually became a piece of the skyline itself. Those days have passed, but it isn’t very difficult to bring them right back into memory. I took these photos, stood and watched nothing but light, and then went home.
