9/11 museum: Tragedy turns the mundane into memorial | CNN

9/11 memorial and museum —

Artifacts from ground zero get a preview at the National September 11 Memorial & Museum in New York. Among them is a cross made out of steel from the World Trade Center in the 2001 attacks. The museum opened in 2014.

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9/11 memorial and museum —

A destroyed New York City Fire Department ambulance from ground zero is on display.

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9/11 memorial and museum —

Cards, patches and mementos of those killed at ground zero -- single objects convey the tragedy of that day, the deadliest terrorist attack on American soil.

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9/11 memorial and museum —

An American flag was recovered from the World Trade Center site.

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9/11 memorial and museum —

Pieces of American Airlines Flight 11 are on display. The plane plowed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center at 8:46 a.m. on September 11, 2001.

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9/11 memorial and museum —

The remains of a New York City Fire Department Ladder Company 3 truck are on display outside the historical exhibition area. Eleven members of Ladder 3 died when the North Tower crumbled.

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9/11 memorial and museum —

Helmets worn by firefighters on September 11, including those of Christian Waugh, were donated by families.

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9/11 memorial and museum —

A photograph at the memorial shows one of the World Trade Center towers collapsing after the attack.

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9/11 memorial and museum —

The symbolic "Last Column," right, a steel beam from one of the towers, stands near the "slurry wall," left, which holds back the Hudson River waters.

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9/11 memorial and museum —

A firefighter shirt from ground zero is on view.

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9/11 memorial and museum —

The wedge-shaped pavilion entrance of the museum, center, is located between the square outlines of the memorial waterfalls at the World Trade Center.

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9/11 memorial and museum —

A visitor to the National September 11 Memorial & Museum takes in the sight.

Mary Altaffer

9/11 memorial and museum —

A rose is placed next to the name of a victim of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center at the North Pool of the memorial.

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9/11 memorial and museum —

Part of the World Trade Center's original foundation, left, and the last column removed from the WTC site, center, are covered in a protective wrap during construction of the museum.

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9/11 memorial and museum —

The "Cross," made of intersecting steel beams found in the rubble of 6 World Trade Center, and a fragment of a trident column, center, one of 84 that formed the exterior structure of each tower, are prepared for display.

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9/11 memorial and museum —

The original stairway from the World Trade Center Plaza to Vesey Street, left, is seen at the museum.

Mary Altaffer

9/11 memorial and museum —

Contractors work to finish construction of the memorial and museum.

Mary Altaffer

9/11 memorial and museum —

One World Trade Center rises above the lower Manhattan skyline in New York.

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9/11 memorial and museum

Story highlights

National September 11 Memorial Museum is open to the public in New York

The exhibition halls are filled with personal things as well as oral histories and photos

Museum curator had the difficult task of deciding how much tragedy to show

The museum is also about how people can be good to one another in times of crisis, curator says

CNN —

When does the ordinary – letters, gloves, wallets – become extraordinary?

When the objects tell a story: a stack of personal letters that fell to the ground after a hijacked plane plowed into the World Trade Center; leather gloves worn in the recovery effort; a red wallet belonging to a woman who worked for Cantor Fitzgerald.

Tragedy turns the mundane into memorial. Something as simple as a wallet can evoke the immense sadness of a day like September 11, 2001.

Objects big and small from the greatest terrorist attack on American soil now make up a museum dedicated to that tragedy and the 2,983 people who perished. It is one of America’s largest and most ambitious memorial museums, almost entirely subterranean and erected in the graveyard of Osama bin Laden’s victims.

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Construction worker Frank Silecchia found a crossbeam in the rubble that resembled a cross. It became a key exhibit at the new museum.

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A police officer found Genni Gambale’s red wallet on the roof of a Marriott hotel, a few blocks south of the Trade Center, days after the attacks. In the wallet were a scorched American Express Corporate card, a $115 coupon for Lenscrafters, a Brooklyn Public Library card, pennies, nickels, dimes.

Now under thick acrylic glass, the wallet tells of a life cut short. Gambale was one of many trapped on the upper floors after American Airlines Flight 11 plowed into the North Tower at 8:46 a.m. She was 27.

The National September 11 Memorial Museum opened in May for the 9/11 community – survivors, families, rescuers. Shortly after it opened to the general public.

The place in itself is an artifact, built in the bedrock of tragedy. Within it are 12,500 objects, 1,995 oral histories and 580 hours of film and video. “An airplane hangar full of largely bruised, contorted artifacts” formed the basis of the museum, says curator Jan Ramirez.

They are objects that cheated destruction. They survived the obliteration of the material world and assumed an otherworldly quality.

But they also could inflict pain again.