It was as if for just a few hours Sunday morning New York City had gone back in time, ten years into the past. Downtown Manhattan looked like a military base. Because of the credible threats and specific terrorist plots all roads to Ground Zero were cordoned off; hundreds of police cars and dozens of road blocks were scattered all over. Minute by minute the streets begin to fill as thousands of people walk together towards the memorial. A blue ribbon adorns their clothes, to remember their loved ones. Most of those present do not know one another but they are united by that same awful fate. With everyone present, the ceremony is about to begin at a place that turned into hell a decade ago. The first moment of silence begins; the names are being read out; one of the names echoes between the sky scrapers, some of which had shared the same skyline with the Twin Towers. Craig Smith waives a picture of his deceased brother, Leon, one of the first fire fighters to arrive at the scene. "It does not matter how long you live but what you do with your life and how many lives you have touched," he tells me and smiles at his brother's image. "Ten years have passed and we are not were we used to be. We are more vigilant but even so I never really feel safe. "We are safer, but the country is in chaos," Sally Ryan from North Carolina explains. She is the mother of Kevin James Murphy, who worked for an insurance company in one of the towers that collapsed. "This is the first time I am attending this ceremony here. I have come to close a circle. Kevin was survived by a wife and two daughters and was a great family guy. It seems that you always lose those who are most precious to you." Nancy Nevarro is standing next to Sally. She Catherine Lisa Loguidice's sister-in-law. Catherine was a stock broker who worked in the North Tower. "Ten years have passed and it seems like yesterday," she says. "It is nice to see that things are coming back to life but we are not going to get any sense of relief; maybe our children will get to feel that." For Sally, she also feels no sense of security. "We will never be safe, there will also be those who pose a threat to us."
