Visiting sites of tragedy to touch history, ease grief

On a blustery January day, a few tourists gather at the spot where the World Trade Center once stood in New York City. In pictures, words and a roll call of the dead, an area of kiosks and signs near the eastern edge of the site recounts the events of September 11, 2001.
These days, the 16-acre hole in the ground -- known to the world as ground zero -- is partially obscured by tall mesh-wire fences that surround a busy construction site. Yet one visitor is visibly moved by a photo taken during a fireman's funeral, one of the many images found on the information panels.
"I feel a little ashamed to be so curious," says Esther Winter, a tourist from Ringsted, Denmark, "but we watched it on television and were so shocked. I had to come here and get the feeling."
Like Winter, many visitors to New York City now include a trip to the World Trade Center site on their agenda. In 2006, more than 5.6 million toured the downtown site, a figure expected to double once the WTC memorial and museum are completed in 2010. Ground zero is just one of many destinations for "grief tourism," a relatively new term for an age-old human inclination -- that of traveling to and bearing witness at the sites of terrible or tragic events.