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CNN Live At Daybreak

Remembering 9-11 Six Months Later

Aired March 11, 2002 - 06:51   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Six months since those planes hit the Twin Towers and with more on today's New York events marking 9-11, we're joined by CNN's Eric Philips who is in a building overlooking ground zero.

Good morning to you, Eric.

Have a question for you, how many times have you been to the actual site of ground zero?

ERIC PHILIPS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Carol, this is my first time having an opportunity to be here at ground zero. After September 11, I actually was assigned in Washington, D.C., and so I spent much more time at the Pentagon. But what's funny about that, Carol, is that even six months later coming here to New York you're still feeling the same effects that you must have felt right afterwards.

When you talk to New Yorkers and you find out how they're feeling these days, many of them are still baffled by what happened and still wondering exactly what hit them. Missing the Twin Towers here as a main staple in their landscape has been heartening or disheartening for New Yorkers. Of course nothing hurts more than missing the loved ones that they lost in the tragedy. But many of the New Yorkers I talked to would like to see two buildings rebuilt in this spot, similar to the Twin Towers, just to say to anyone who might want to attack New York that we are definitely growing back stronger than ever before so you want to stay away.

COSTELLO: Give us -- give us an update, Eric, on the cleanup efforts there. They have been amazing.

PHILIPS: Absolutely amazing, Carol. As a matter of fact, they have removed something like 1,400,000 tons of debris from this site, and they're still working continuously around the clock as they have been since September 11. We're told at this point that they think they will be done with the cleanup somewhere around June. They're not locking themselves into that. But initially they thought it would take a year to complete the cleanup, but they say they are ahead of schedule at this point.

COSTELLO: And you mentioned that many people want buildings similar to the Twin Towers built on that site but no decisions have been made yet, right? PHILIPS: No, no decisions have been made just yet. Mayor has appointed a committee to make a recommendation on exactly what will happen with the World Trade Center site. The conventional wisdom is that it will be some type of combination between a memorial and some type of commerce here, but no decision has been made yet. And that is really what a lot of people are waiting to find out what is going to happen in this spot that many people call sacred.

COSTELLO: You know you've been to many memorial sites, you were at Shanksville, Pennsylvania, too, for the memorial there, you were at the Pentagon for much of the time and now you're in New York. Is the feeling pretty much the same?

PHILIPS: You know I think each spot sort of has its own unique feel, but at the same time, one thing that is the same regardless of where you are, people are just wanting to know why. That's still the same question, why did this happen and will it happen again? I talked to some people on the street as we sort of toured around the city here in New York and a lot of people are wondering, you know, will this happen again? The sense of security is gone. But at the same time, what's remarkable is that New Yorkers are determined that they will move on. And they're saying, hey, we are a city that is resilient, we will move on, we will grow stronger, and that is something that, although I saw it in Washington, D.C. as well as in Pennsylvania, that is the strongest feeling I had here in New York.

COSTELLO: Yes, Americans are something else, aren't they? All right.

PHILIPS: They are.

COSTELLO: Thank you. Eric Philips reporting live for us from New York City.

And of course, lots of ceremonies planned in New York starting at 8:46, of course that's the time the first plane hit the Twin Tower.

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