I was sitting in a museum bench staring up at the “slurry wall.”

The bench, made of simple fine-grained walnut, was like one you might find in any museum in the world. The slurry wall, that felt monumental. It towered over the hall and the visitors.

The wall is one of the exhibits in the National September 11 Memorial & Museum in New York. Although, it isn’t really correct to call it an exhibit. It’s literally part of the complex itself.

It’s a retaining wall of concrete held in place by giant bolt anchors drilled into the bedrock. It... More