For the sake of 3,000 reasons and millions of interpretations, Ground Zero has become a magnet this week.
Ten years ago, victims ran from the collapsing towers of the World Trade Center. A decade later, curiosity lures people or calls them back.
On this Sept. 11 anniversary, Hamrick officially retires from the Ft. Wayne, Indiana Fire Department. That's fitting, since 10 years ago, Hamrick spent days on the roofs of buildings near the World Trade Center plaza to recover the remains of aircraft passengers -- a gruesome task.
"A hand with a wedding ring is a lot more than what a lot of people were going to get," Hamrick said.
As the anniversary approached -- a time when so many were drawn to New York -- others pulled away.
"I don't want to be in New York City on 9-11," said Anita Glesta. "It's too much."
ABC7 has been following Glesta for 10 years since the day she moved out of an apartment overlooking a view of Ground Zero that she could not bring herself to look at.
"I heard the noise and looked out the window," Glesta said, "and saw the trail of the airplane and saw fire."
Glesta is now a Brooklyn resident. She says she feels "safer-ish" there.
Like many survivors, Glesta is reconciling the bits and pieces of that fateful day.
"I kept thinking that there is something larger than just our own sense of victimization in New York City," Glesta said.
The public art she installed a few blocks from Ground Zero compares New York City with Guernica, Spain, the first place where civilians died from an aerial bombing during the Spanish civil war in 1937 -- an event immortalized by Pablo Picasso.
"When people are remembering that day, I feel it's important to remember in a larger context that people experience this throughout the world," Glesta said.
As the world looks back at September 11 from ten years later, each of us packages the experience in our own way.
"I just deal with it as it's part of history," Hamrick said. "Somebody had to do it."
For Glesta, somebody had to say it. When art imitates life, it cannot always be pretty.
ABC7 asked if Glesta would be in New York. She said no.
