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Oklahoma City National Memorial & Museum
The Oklahoma City National
Memorial and museum is located in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma and is a
grand memorial that gives the utmost honor to the survivors,
victims, rescuers and other people that were forever changed by the
tragic events of the bombing that occurred on April 19, 1995. It
sits downtown on the former site of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal
Building that was destroyed by that horrific bombing. The National
Memorial was started on October 9, 1997, after Bill Clinton signed
the Oklahoma City National Memorial Act of 1997, and as is tradition
with the National Park Service historic sites, placed on the
National Register of Historic Places on the same day. The National
Memorial Museum and the Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism
make up the components that have been placed in the old Journal
Record Building that sits on the north side of the memorial grounds.
It was officially dedicated on April 19, 2000, the fifth anniversary
of that terrible bombing, and the museum was dedicated the next
year. The Outdoor Symbolic Memorial holds the following sections
that sit on 3.3 acres of land, and is open every day of the year,
24/7; the Field of Empty Chairs, which is 168 empty chairs that have
been hand-crafted from bronze, glass and stone that represent those
people that lost their lives on that fateful day. Each bombing
victim's name is etched in the glass base, and these chairs are the
empty chairs that every family that lost a loved one faces each time
they sit down for a meal. They are arrayed in nine rows that
symbolize the nine floors of the building, with each person's chair
sitting in the row/floor where they worked or was visiting when the
chains of events occurred. The westernmost line of five chairs
represent the five people that were not in the Murrah building when
the bomb went off, but two were in the Water Resources building, one
outside near the building, one rescuer and one in the Athenian
building. The nineteen small chairs represent the children that were
murdered in the senseless bombing, as were three unborn children
that died with their mothers, and are listed with their mothers on
their chairs. The Gates of Time are huge twin bronze gates that
frame the moment of devastation; 9:02, and are the formal entry into
the memorial. On the eastern gate is 9:01, the last moment of peace
for these folks on this earth, and on the other gate is 9:03, when
the first seconds of recovery began, although for many, there never
will be. Both of the time stamps have been inscribed in the inside
of the monument and face each other as well as the Reflecting Pool.
On the exterior of the gates is inscribed; "We come here to remember
Those who were killed, those who survived and those changed forever.
May all who leave here know the impact of violence. May this
memorial offer comfort, strength, peace, hope and serenity". The
Reflecting Pool is merely a thin layer of water that flows over a
polished black granite slab, going east to west, down the middle of
the memorial which had been part of Fifth Street. Visitors that come
here and look into the pool will see the reflection of a person that
has been changed by domestic terrorism. The Survivor Tree is an
American elm tree that stands on the north side of the memorial, and
was the only shade tree in the parking lot that was located across
from the building, and workers would come in early just to get a
spot that was shaded by this tree. There are photos of the city that
are from the beginning of its statehood, which is about 1907, and
the tree is shown in it, which means it is now about 103 years old.
Although it is old, it had been neglected and also taken for granted
before the bombing, but after surviving the blast, although being
heavily damaged, it was cut to gather some of the evidence that had
blown into its branches. The Survivors wall is the only remaining
original part of the Murrah building and is located on the southeast
corner. It has become the Survivors Wall and has many panels of
granite that was saved from the building inscribed with the names of
the over 800 survivors from the building and the area around it.
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