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Four years ago this September 11th, I was working with a child with special needs on a low-ropes course when the first bits of news about an attack on New York City and the Pentagon started dribbling in. There were no phones nearby, and in any case the student I was working with required all of my attention, especially once he picked up on the mood of upset and anger and fear from the rest of the students and adults at the ropes course. I had to wait until about 3 p.m. before learning if my family was OK.

Outside of me, my wife, and my son (who wouldn’t be born for another year) all of my family lived in New York City, and worked downtown. They were all fine, although my mother, with two artificial hips had to walk a couple of miles uptown to get home, along with thousands of other New Yorkers walking away from a cloud of smoke and death. A friend of mine was working only a few blocks away from the World Trade Center, and crossed the Brooklyn Bridge looking like one of an army of ghosts marching, coated in white powder from the buildings’ destruction.

The Twin Towers helped define the New York skyline as I grew up, and every time I returned to the city throughout my childhood and until that day four years ago. I was less than two years old when the North Tower opened, and 32 when both towers came down. In the intervening years, I visited them on school trips, marveled at them while taking the “Circle-Line” boat cruise, and even ate in “Windows on the World” once. Every TV show and movie filmed in New York prior to 9/11/01 seemed to show the two towers to help ground viewers and establish that they were indeed in New York City. They did the same for me whenever I drove across the George Washington Bridge going home.

I still cry when I see the hole in the skyline and think about the 3000 people whose lives ended that day, and the firefighters and police who entered the buildings to help keep that number from being astronomically higher, many of whom never came out. I’m also filled with anger and hate for those who would kill innocent mothers, fathers, sons, and daughters ... emotions I’m ashamed of, but that burn brightly in me nonetheless. Fear comes through last - fear for my family and friends and even (especially?) for all of the people I don’t know and will never meet who will be hurt and killed the next time terrorists attack New York, or any other town.

My GPS unit is very much like the ones the terrorists used to fix the locations of the towers and the pentagons (and likely the White House) prior to the attacks of 9/11/01. It is also like the ones used in the hours and days and weeks after the attacks to help the injured, locate the dead, and start the process of rebuilding from the ashes. My GPS unit, and the ones like it used before and after 9/11, is a tool to be used for good or evil, fun or work, as the person holding it chooses. I desperately hope that the world my son grows up in is a world where people choose to use our powerful tools and technology for good and for fun.

The coordinates given are for Ground Zero of the attacks on the World Trade Center of 9/11/01.