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American Morning
Ground Zero Work to End
Aired May 30, 2002 - 08:01 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.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: Up front this morning, an emotional day for the city and the whole country. In just a few hours, recovery workers at ground zero will officially stop the work that began almost nine months ago, finishing about three months ahead of time and under budget.
And for a nation eager to move on while refusing to let go, today's ceremony marks not just an end, but a new beginning.
And CNN's Maria Hinojosa is at ground zero and she joins us now.
Good morning -- Maria.
MARIA HINOJOSA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Paula.
It's really hard to convey the level of emotion that you're feeling just here in this area. It's so difficult as people think about what's happening today and what to do in terms of moving forward. While the recovery work might be ending here, for many family members, their recovery enters another phase, coming to terms with the fact that perhaps they may never find anything of their loved ones from this site, and having to deal with the hard reality of what comes next for this site.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
HINOJOSA (voice-over): We have seen this site transformed. It's been called ground zero, the site, the pile, the pit, and now a new phase begins.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Today it's an opportunity to pay homage to the people who lost their lives here and the survivors and the rescuers and also a chance to build a good thing.
HINOJOSA: A good thing for a community that has been so badly wounded. The recovery has been slow, and neighborhood scars remain. And for the site itself, the slow, meticulous work of sifting through the rubble nears its end, nearly 200 tons of debris hauled away.
(on camera): So when you look at this and you think about possibilities, there's sadness, but there's also?
T.J. GOTTISDIENER, SKIDMORE, OWNINGS & MERRILL LP: A lot of promise. A lot of hope. A lot of anticipation. This is going to be great. Whatever is done, whoever does it, it's got to be done right. It's got to build that infrastructure back so that from that rises great architecture in a great part of the city.
HINOJOSA (voice-over): A part of the city so many are vested in.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It is important that affordable housing be considered.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Where is Chinatown in your proposed blueprint?
HINOJOSA: There will be six forums so the public's voice can be heard. But in the end, how do you build tastefully, respectfully, measuredly? And how does a new generation of Americans build a memorial? There is the Pearl Harbor, large and expansive, the Vietnam Memorial covered with names, the 168 empty chairs of Oklahoma City -- but no modern memorial of this scale for this new millennium.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There is this sort of feeling, this belief that the memorial is just a way to make the survivors feel better. And in fact, while we all want them to feel better, the purpose of a memorial has to be to transcend that. It's also about the broader social mission of helping everyone feel a sense of awe and respect.
HINOJOSA: And for Monica Egan, who lost her young husband Michael on September 11, the only reason to rebuild anything on the site is for the memorial.
MONICA EGAN: I'd love to see the whole site be a memorial for the lives that were lost. I'd love to see that. But that's not reality. Reality is that, you know, we need to rebuild. And I would love to see it incorporate everything along with the memorial that it reflects, so that we have a place to heal in the future and a place to go.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HINOJOSA: At 10:29 today, the exact time that the last tower fell, there will be a stretcher let out covered with an American flag, symbolizing all of those who perished but were not found. And the truck carrying the last steel load will take out of this site the last steel load. And we'll be reporting on that all day for you -- Paula.
ZAHN: Maria, there's also been a lot of focus on that last beam that was removed from the site. Where will it go after it leaves ground zero?
HINOJOSA: There will be a very formal procession here -- no words, Paula, only music. And they will meet out of here through Manhattan, through Canal Street. It will end up for now at JFK on a hangar site. It's a steel girder that's covered with messages, flags, and signs. It will be determined yet where that steel girder will end up -- Paula.
ZAHN: All right, thanks so much, Maria. Once again, that ceremony gets under way, or at least our coverage at 10:00, and 10:29 is the official start of the city's ceremony, and we will be taking that live.
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