At the end of September 2011, I went to New York City for my first time.

I spent a good portion of the 10th anniversary of September 11 reliving the infamous events and I really had no intention of going down to Ground Zero. I did look online to see if I could get a ticket into the 9/11 Memorial, but once I discovered that tickets weren't available until late October, I scrubbed those plans. But my coworker, Jennifer, said I "had" to go down to Ground Zero.

So, Friday afternoon, I jumped in a cab and started my journey at St. Paul's Chapel. Jennifer recommended that I start there first. Upon arriving at the chapel, I made my way up the steps where a time line of 9/11 events provided an instant recollection of the fading, but still very real, 2001 events. I snapped a few photographs outside and ventured inside the chapel.

When the World Trade Center Towers were built, St. Paul's Chapel sat in the shadows of the towers, welcoming their new neighbors. When the towers fell, the church amazingly survived and was one of the places where firefighters would hang their boots on the fence after a long, hard days work at Ground Zero.

The day of my visit, the chapel was crowded with people taking pictures of people now gone from this world. For me, it just didn't seem right to photograph such sacred memories. So I wandered through taking mental images to keep for myself.

After my journey through the chapel, I ventured past the new World Trade Center toward Battery Park. I took this picture of the World Trade Center One, reaching for the sky, with the sign below it.