The 9/11 Museum in New York City

First off, belated greetings to my first born daughter, Dr. Frances Angelique “Fara” Avila-Tequillo, on her nth birthday today. Sorry, I missed sending my Wednesday column due to time constraints. She is the eldest not only of my children, but the first grandchild of my late parents Atty. Jesus and Ascension Avila. Fara, with her husband Jennoh, turned us into grandparents with four lovely grandchildren who are the joy of my family. As we are still in the US, we can only greet her through the Internet or viber. So many happy returns of the day and May God bless you always. Love from Daddy, Mommy and Inky.

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Stamford, Connecticut. Sunday was a shopping day for us in the US, but first we went to Mass at the St. Clement of Rome Parish in Fairfield Ave. which is just five minutes from where we are staying. I have a particular connection with St. Clement of Rome because when I visited Nice in Southern France, I saw his grave inside a church there, and most of all, St. Clement is one of the Early Fathers of the Catholic Church where practicing apologists like me often turn to his teachings when talking about Catholic Doctrine.

After the Mass, our hosts, John and Inda Gage showed us an area at the side of this church, which is used as a playroom for children where parents deposit them there to play while they are hearing mass. There’s a huge mural on that side of the church, which was painted by their son, Sean Manuel Gage. Sean died at the very young age of 30, but he did a lot of paintings and murals in the church and in a children’s hospital in Long Island. There is a plaque beside his mural that honors this Filipino-American boy.

After the mass we drove up to Woodbury Commons, a famous factory outlet near the Catskill Mountains for a day of shopping passing through the Tappan Zee Bridge in the Hudson River. This place has grown since the last time we were there some 17 years ago and the prices are outrageously low. Call it perfect timing that Sunday was Father’s Day so brands like G.H. Bass for instance had special prices: buy one for the original price and get two shoes for free! So if you bought a pair of shoes for, say, $80, you get two pairs of shoes for free. This is the kind of sale that lures people to the USA.

The next day we took an hour’s train ride from Stamford, Connecticut all the way to the Grand Central Station in Midtown, Manhattan, took the subway, then a cab to the downtown area to see the newly-opened 9/11 Museum. It only opened a few weeks ago but our cousin Inda Gage was able to secure us tickets to the museum. Believe me, those tickets are hard to come by as it is now summer vacation in the United States and people are going to places, particularly to New York City. The top tourist destination is the 9/11 Museum. While we did have a ticket for 2:00 p.m., we still had to line up and the queues were very long for that particular time.

I’m sure that everyone recalls exactly where they were when the two commercial aircraft piloted by terrorists slammed into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center (WTC) and turned these icons of American industry into a hellish nightmare. But while Osama Bin Laden and his ilk succeeded in destroying the WTC, this was one negative incident that the Americans exploited to the hilt and in the end, the 9/11 Museum has become America’s must see tourist attraction.

The Museum is actually located three to four stories underground, to the very foundations of the WTC. The main structures where the columns of the WTC were anchored on are right there for you to see… in both the North and the South Towers. Inside are colored photographs of the nearly three thousand people who died in that inferno. There are so many artifacts on display, like someone’s watch, a Nokia cellphone and wallets and bags containing credit cards and driver’s licenses. I gathered that all identifiable items were returned to their respective families, who in turn offered them to the museum for display.

My feeling inside was one of solemnity. It was like visiting a grave. I had exactly the same feeling when a few years ago, my sister Adela Kono and husband Yuki invited me to visit the Hiroshima Memorial south of Tokyo. Inside that memorial were artifacts that showed the extent of the destruction of the Atomic Bomb. Of course that’s where the similarity ends. The bombing of Hiroshima ended the Second World War, while 9/11 officially started the War on Terror that many pundits are now saying is an unwinnable war.

Watching CNN News about the insurgents taking over most of Iraq gives you an idea that the War on Terror may not be ending at all despite the withdrawal of US troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. Because of 9/11, security was very tight in the museum, where they even use the state of the art scanning machine to check out those entering the museum. It was like going to the airport. I was glad to visit this place, as I was here in 2002.

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