NEW YORK • I never knew Susan Leigh Blair or Karl W. Teepe. I didn't even know they existed until I found myself punching "St. Louis" into a digital directory at the National September 11 Memorial & Museum in New York.

There they were, their images putting faces to the immense loss of their families and friends, yet representing only a fraction of the staggering grief that beset every nook of our nation in the aftermath of Sept. 11, 2001.

According to news reports, Blair was born in St. Louis in 1966 and had a loud raucous laugh. She was 35 when she perished in the south tower of the World Trade Center, where she worked for Aon Corp.

Karl W. Teepe, also a native of St. Louis, worked for the Defense Intelligence Agency at the Pentagon in Washington. During his lunch hour, he often walked to a nearby sculpture garden or gallery in one of the Smithsonian Institutions so he could sit and soak in the beauty. He was 57 when he died at the Pentagon.

I lived in New York City for four years during the early '90s. I'd been in the World Trade Center and to its observation deck more times than I can count. I had also been to New York dozens of times since Sept. 11 to visit family and always avoided ground zero. Gawking at the site of such devastation seemed strange to me. Until now.

I turned away from the digital directory, toward the reflecting pools.

Each one is nearly an acre in size and set in the footprint of one of the Twin Towers.

The names of all 2,983 people who died at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and Shanksville, Pa., are carved in bronze atop the walls which stand waist-high.

The digital directory states that Blair's name is on panel 56 of the south pool. Teepe's name is also carved into the south pool, on panel 71.

Thousands of streamlets of water drop 30 feet into the bottoms of the pools where they flow like molten glass to holes that seem to have no bottom. They're stunning in their austerity and symbolism.

Everywhere, flowers were sticking out of the deeply carved letters that comprised each name. A maintenance worker circled the south pool with a broom.

"Leaves. No good," he said in a thick Albanian accent to an inquiring visitor. He reached over the granite wall, down to a ledge where the spigots spurt water and pushed several leaves into the falling water with the broom bristles.

More than 250 sweet gum and swamp white oak trees dot the landscape. Eventually, there'll be 400 of them.

A security guard explained that some came from nurseries near the field in Shanksville where Flight 93 crashed. Others came were harvested in New Jersey, New York and other places.

One tree doesn't look like the rest. It's gnarled, cordoned off and has bungee cords holding it steady.

Several visitors were crowded around it, peering at something propped against the base of its trunk. It was a framed essay called "A Warrior's Thoughts."

It's the Survivor Tree, a Callery pear, that was discovered among the rubble in the days after Sept. 11 with burned branches, snapped roots and a blackened trunk. It was barely clinging to life.

Workers whisked it away to Van Cortlandt Nursery in the Bronx, where it was nursed back to health then replanted between the two pools.

The memorial, which took four years to build, opened Sept. 11, 2011. More than a million people visited it during the next three months, says Sarah Lippman, spokeswoman for the memorial.

Visitors must apply for passes to get entry to the memorial site. The passes include the date and time of admission.

Michael Arad, an Israeli-American architect, designed the memorial, which he called "Reflecting Absence." Peter Walker, a landscape architect, designed the grounds around the pools.

Arad's design was selected from among 5,201 entries.

My father-in-law, Vartan Gregorian, president of the Carnegie Corp., was foreman of the 13-member jury that selected the design.

"We had to go through all of them and certify that we went through them," he told me one afternoon over coffee near his office on Madison Avenue. "They were identified by numbers only. No names. Each sculptor and architect was allowed to submit one design. If they submitted more, they were disqualified."

The jurors analyzed and discussed the merits and potential costs of each. The process, which took six months, was painstaking and emotionally fraught. Family members of victims, firefighters and police officers wanted input on everything from the design to whose name should go where and if some should be specially recognized.

"We wanted water as a symbol of life, the trees are for longevity and a two-tower footprint," Vartan explained. "There was great discussion on how to list the names. Alphabetically? By tower? The police and firefighters — they were heroes. What about the MTA (Metropolitan Transit Authority)? We were dealing with people who were grieving."

There's still work to be done. Finishing touches are being put on the 9/11 Memorial museum, which was due to open this year on Sept. 11. Financial squabbles appear to be pushing that date back into 2013.

Visitors will enter through an above-ground glass atrium that's already been built. It will include a private suite for family members of victims.

Currently, a visitor center on-site is not much larger than a gift shop. A video of survivors and the families of victims plays in a continuous loop on one wall. A sign near a crumpled piece of aluminum from the façade of one of the towers explains that some pieces melted off while others catapulted into the streets as the towers came crashing down.

And the helmet of FDNY Battalion Chief Brian O'Flaherty sits inside a glass case, encrusted with something — pulverized concrete from the towers perhaps?

The site is walled off from the rest of lower Manhattan. It will remain that way until construction is completed on the new World Trade Center complex. Cranes and workers can be seen most days erecting five skyscrapers, including One World Trade Center (also known as Freedom Tower), which will loom 105 stories and 1,776 feet above the memorial. It is expected to be finished in 2018.

Then the walls around the site will come down and the memorial will beckon visitors to roam free, contemplating our nation's immense loss and the solemn, elegant beauty that comes with healing.

I'm guessing that Karl Teepe would have loved this place.

Other sites worth visiting in lower Manhattan

St. Paul's Chapel, Broadway and Fulton streets • Manhattan's oldest public building in continuous use. George Washington worshipped here, and 9/11 recovery workers received round-the-clock care here. A large sculpture of a root in the chapel's courtyard pays homage to the sycamore tree that bore the brunt of damage from falling debris Sept. 11, thereby protecting the chapel.

Stone Street between Williams and Broad streets • A hidden, cobblestone gem chock full of quaint eateries such as Vintry Wine & Whiskey, Mad Dog & Beans and Smorgas Chef. Blocks are roped off in summer so patrons can eat at outdoor tables in the middle of the street.

Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island • Tickets can be purchased in advance at statuecruises.com, by phone at 1-201-604-2800 or in person at the ticket offices near the ferry departure points.

South Street Seaport, 11 Fulton Street • A mashup of Laclede's Landing and the Galleria, this outdoor, seaside mall includes dozens of restaurants and shops such as Coach and Abercrombie & Fitch.

New York Stock Exchange and Wall Street Tours • Visit nyse.nyx.com for a list of tour providers.

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IF YOU GO

Tickets • Visitors must reserve advance passes for a specific date and time. The passes are free and available through the memorial's online reservation system at 911memorial.org.

 

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EDITOR'S NOTE: A paragraph in this story has been clarified because plans for the memorial museum are in flux, putting the opening date in doubt.