22. New York and the world remembers ...

Today was a very special time for me to be in New York ... the day when the City stood still to remember the innocent people who perished in the senseless destruction of the Twin Towers at the World Trade Centre on this day 12 years ago.

I bussed into Manhattan on this extremely hot steamy and very hazy morning and walking from the bus terminal down 42nd Street to the harbour there was a sense of silence in the hundreds of office workers I passed as they rushed to their workplaces.

I had decided to take a cruise around the Manhattan Island today, and as we pulled away from the pier we could only imagine the horror that was unfolding at this very time in 2001.  

The nearly completed building at the WTC

Our boat joined several other water craft on the river and hundreds of New Yorkers on shore - all of us coming to a standstill to observe a minute's silence at the exact time of day that the South Tower had fallen.

Fire-fighters hoist the stars and stripes on 9.11.2001 (image from Google)

Many innocent people perished on that day - and many heroes also - as the two skyscrapers crumbled to the ground. And many others elsewhere in the US became victims of this outrageous act of terrorism.

And tonight two beams of lights shoot up from the WTC site as a final salute for the day ...