New Yorkers Visit Scene, Return to Homes
Sept. 22 -- They've seen it on TV, and this weekend, members of the general public are seeing with their own eyes the destruction wrought when two hijacked jetliners slammed into and collapsed buildings at New York's World Trade Center on Sept. 11.
"Total devastation," said one onlooker. "I mean … I've never seen anything like it."
The general public is now allowed to get within just a couple of blocks of ground zero. People stop, they look in awe. Many of them take pictures. The skeletal remains of the World Trade Center's south tower loom above.
"When you see all the pictures on TV and hear it on the radio, you think of seeing Bruce Willis walking out of it," said another onlooker. "And then you're here and you know that it's reality, it's people's lives."
"We won't be able to find them, and you have to pay your respects somehow," another said.
Service for the Victims
The official number of people missing at the World Trade Center stands at 6,333 — and 261 are confirmed dead, 194 of whom have been identified, New York Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik said today.
Another 189 people are missing or dead after another hijacked plane slammed into the Pentagon outside Washington on Sept. 11. Forty-four more perished when passengers apparently struggled with hijackers in another plane, which crash landed in western Pennsylvania that day.
On Sunday, more than 55,000 people able to get free tickets will be able to pay their respects to the missing and the dead at a special outdoor service at Yankee Stadium. Thousands of others will gather at minor league stadiums in the boroughs of Staten Island and Brooklyn, and in Newark, N.J.
James Earl Jones and Oprah Winfrey will emcee the two-hour event, which begins at 2:30 p.m. Singers Bette Midler, Placido Domingo and Lee Greenwood will perform, and religious leaders from various faiths are scheduled to speak.
Slim Hopes for Survivors
But even though the missing will be memorialized, they're not necessarily all being given up for lost just yet. New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani said officials haven't turned the corner and given up hope of finding someone alive.
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