Three hundred feet above the President

StreetObservations.com - With the excitement of the elimination of Bin Laden, President Obama made a visit to Ground Zero to greet the families of those stricken on 9/11.  As it happens, my workplace happens to overlook this landmark.  It is a fantastic view of the site, but is 32 floors above, which is pretty high up.  

Here what the view generally looks like (FYI - this series of pictures is best viewed large, just click it for the big version).   This shot was taken in March.  The primary building here is One World Trade Center (originally called the Freedom Tower) which will eventually be 1776 high, that is about 3 to 4 times the height which it was here.  As I write this it is a bit higher (about 63 stories). 

A group of workers from our office stood along the windows waiting for Obama to arrive.  The time wasn't completely certain so it took a couple of visits amidst other work before there was activity. 

Even if the President was down there, I wasn't certain that I would be able to clearly identify which one might him.  I recall a visit to Ground Zero by Queen Elizabeth.  I rattled off 50 photos focused on a woman in pink, certain that I had captured her, until I watched the Nightly News and saw that she was clad in yellow.  

The first signs of pre-Presidential activity was an awareness of sharpshooters setting up on the nearby roofs.    

It was helpful that there was a live feed of the President's motorcade on CNN visible on the computers in our office, so we were able to correlate the real events with the "perceived".  Eventually, the roads grew still and the cars appeared on the West Side highway.  It is believed that Obama was in the big black van here at the very far right of the picture.  

Meanwhile down below, some bleachers had been constructed the day before for the seating of the families.  The main event was the laying of a special wreath.  The families waited.  

The car moved into the center of the plaza.  This gave the appearance that he would emerge from there.  Everyone up on the 32nd floor focused on this car, snapping away with our cameras. 

But we had been fooled, as a minute later, this group of dignitaries was spotted further down. The CNN feed confirmed that this was the President here.  Besides Obama, the group behind was NJ Governor Christie, NY Governor Cuomo, NYC Mayor Bloomberg, and the head of the MTA (I think that's who he was).  Even though my Canon 40D is a decent camera, my zoom 135mm lens was overmatched and even after cropping the picture, the 32 floors proved to be a bit much for getting an upclose shot.   

He approached the reception line.

Then he began shaking hands individually.   

He walked the wreath over to place on a pedestal.  

At this point, we had been waiting/watching the tiny little folks below for about 45 minutes.  I had delayed a business meeting to watch, but it became slightly boring.  And, it was time to leave for the meeting.  I assume he got out of there okay.