ALREADY A MEMORIAL NEW YORK'S GROUND ZERO REMAINS BARREN, BUT SITE ATTRACTS THRONGS OF MOURNERS.

Byline: Eric Noland Travel Editor

NEW YORK - As the small knots of visitors draw near to the steel perimeter fence, laughter and cheerful talk ceases. Smiles disappear entirely.

This is hallowed ground. And to gaze over the barren 16 acres of Ground Zero is a profoundly sobering experience.

The World Trade Center site, now just a gaping crater in Lower Manhattan, is attracting visitors by the hundreds these days. On weekends in particular, they stream into the city's otherwise deserted financial district, arriving by subway, bus, cab and on foot.

The prevailing reaction is dumbfounded shock, followed by deep sadness.

``After this attack, the whole world history has changed. It has affected everything,'' said Negi Bhawan Singh, a diplomat from India who stood at the fence with his wife, Kamala. ``We felt we should go and see. Ah, I can't believe it. Those two tall buildings, and now nothing.''

It is, indeed, difficult to fathom. On the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, the twin towers stood as impressive symbols of Western commerce - each soaring 105 stories tall, the North Tower at 1,368 feet, the South Tower at 1,362 feet. But shortly after terrorists slammed hijacked passenger jetliners into them, they telescoped to earth in horrific crashes.

The wreckage of the buildings and the remains of the nearly 3,000 victims have long since been cleared away, and the site cleared to the depths of the former subterranean parking structure. Officials are conferring over what to build in its place, and exactly what form a memorial should take.

In the meantime, although there is little in the way of official accommodation for those wishing to pay their respects, visitors pour in daily, even if they can do nothing more than peer through the fence or read the makeshift memorials.

Some might find this ghoulish, but the atmosphere is not unlike other similar sites on U.S. soil - the USS Arizona Memorial in Hawaii's Pearl Harbor comes to mind, or the stark black wall with an appalling chronicle of dead at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington.

For a time, there was a viewing platform here, but it has come down. Now visitors simply make their way around the edge - on Vesey, Church, West and Liberty streets. Most climb into a covered pedestrian bridge that extends from the Dow Jones Building on West Street to the southwest corner of the WTC site. From its windows, it's possible to look down into the pit where the twin towers once stood.

A short distance away, along Church Street, are the memorials. The names of the dead are listed on black panels. A remnant of the North Tower in the shape of a cross is mounted just inside the fence; wreaths and flags crowd its base. Across the street at St. Paul's Chapel, the wrought-iron fence of the churchyard is covered with tributes: photos of the dead with words of remembrance, bouquets of flowers, hard hats, flags, teddy bears, banners of sympathy sent from all over the country.

Your heart aches to read the words of a mother who lost a firefighter son and has placed his fresh-faced photo here.

But your blood boils when you encounter street vendors selling photos of the attacks and what appears to be a souvenir program. There are even entrepreneurs selling sunglasses, watches, hats and T-shirts from folding tables.

Along the WTC fence on Church Street, there are a few information boards about the towers and the other buildings here that fell, but no officials are on hand to answer questions about where the towers precisely stood or the extent of the damage in the area.

So Harry Roland does it unofficially. He feels spared by fate.

Roland used to be a tour guide at the World Trade Center, he said, and was scheduled to work the morning of Sept. 11. But that was the first day of school for his 8-year-old son, DeVon, so he requested a day off. Roland couldn't be spared the full day, he was told, but could have a half-day - the morning.

He comes down here whenever he can and passes out photocopied diagrams of where the various buildings of the trade center once stood.

``I know it's hard to believe, but these are absolutely free,'' Roland called out. ``This is history, don't let it be a mystery. It wasn't just the two towers. Nine buildings are gone, seven of them were the World Trade Center. Over 80 buildings were damaged.

``This was not an accident. This was an act of war.''

Later, he quietly told a reporter, ``It's sort of like therapy for me. I do it as a tribute to my friends who died here, and the policemen and firemen.''

Officials from the city, the Lower Manhattan Development Corp. and the Port Authority have narrowed architectural designs for the site down to two: a 1,776-foot structure and memorial drawn up by Daniel Libeskind and two 1,665-foot latticework towers designed by a group calling itself the Think team.

It would be nice if an organization like the National Park Service could be assigned to oversee visitation, as it does at the USS Arizona and Vietnam Veterans memorials.

Whatever the process, here's hoping the first step involves a bulldozer - to sweep away that crass gaggle of vendors.

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Photo:

(1 -- 2) Steel fences surround the World Trade Center site in New York, where each day hordes of visitors pay their respects and view makeshift memorials to victims of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.

(3) Harry Roland, a former WTC tour guide who was off work the day of the attacks, provides information to anyone who cares to listen.