New Platform Gives Visitors View of WTC Site

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Monday, December 31, 2001

New Platform Gives Visitors View of WTC Site

After three months of peering through gaps in fences and past police barricades, visitors on Sunday got an unobstructed view of the remains of the World Trade Center from a newly built observation platform.

Starting at dawn, hundreds of people stood in a line that snaked for blocks, waiting in freezing temperatures for the 13-foot-high stage to open at 9 a.m.

The platform, accessed by a long wooden ramp, can hold 300 to 400 people. It is big enough across the front for about a dozen people at a time to stand side-by-side to see the huge red cranes and other machinery that have been at work day and night since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

The cranes still stop, almost daily, so workers can remove the remains of the dead.

Instead of craning for a view down blocked-off streets, visitors now can get an unobstructed view of the jagged holes in the ground that open into what was once the trade center's underground mall.

The rectangular, fenced-in structure is on Church Street alongside the cemetery behind historic St. Paul's Church and within view of City Hall.

The platform was officially opened Saturday by Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who urged people to "come here and say a little prayer and reflect on the whole history of America."

Giuliani also added an inscription to one of the wooden railings: "We will always remember what you did here �� you, our heroes �� to save America. God bless you."

The city plans three more observation platforms in the area, but there was no immediate word on when they would be finished.

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