The Memorial stretches over 8 acres and honors the lives lost on September 11 2001. Architect Michael Arad created the stunning memorial design and worked with landscape architecture firm Peter Walker and Partners. Their design – two recessed pools surrounded by a field of white oaks opened May 21 2014.
One tree, the Survivor Tree, a callery pear tree, survived the destruction and was rescued, nursed back to health and returned to the memorial grounds in 2010.
Museum architect Davis Brody Bond created a unique experience beginning at the museum entry where you enter the pavilion which is designed to resemble a partially collapsed building and includes two tridents from the Twin Towers. From there you begin the descent, slowly making your way 70 feet below ground. Along the way you pass the remnants of the original buildings mixed with story boards. You are walking back in time and experiencing the unimaginable.
The Museum houses over 40,000 images, over 10,000 artifacts and 2000 oral histories of those killed on from September 11 2001. Artifacts include steel from the Twin Towers, wrecked emergency vehicles, and pieces of metal.
World Trade Center tridents – steel columns 2 of 84 that formed the perimeter of the North Tower.
The Last Column – the symbolic piece of steel chosen to mark the occasion of the completion of recovery operations in 2002. Tributes in the form of messages and photographs were added to the column by recovery works, first responders and victim’s relatives.
Dedication Pedestal – a stainless steel installed April 4 1973 to mark the opening of the world’s tallest buildings.
The “Survivors’ Stairs” – on the edge of the World Trade Center Plaza withstood the collapse on 9/11.
Box Column remnants – steel columns provided structural support for the Twin Towers. The columns were cut down to the remnants during clean-up of the site.
Excavation artifacts from the South Tower.
9/11 Memorial Urn – Tom Lane created this memorial vessel cast in porcelain and honors the lives of those lost on 9/11. Fired into its surface are the names of all 2,977 victims.
FDNY Dream Bike – Owned by Firefighter Gerard Baptiste FDNY Ladder Company 9 who lost his life in the North Tower. The bike was later restored and decorated as a tribute.
Section of steel façade from North Tower. Flight 11 created a gash in the North Tower. The bottom of the aircraft mangled the top of this façade segment.
Segment of radio and television antenna, North Tower – all transmission stopped at 10:28 am when the tower collapsed.
Ladder Company 3 – “All 11 responding members of Ladder Company 3 were inside the building and killed when it collapsed at 10:28 a.m.
They were among thousands of uniformed responders who collectively formed the single largest dispatch of nonmilitary emergency personnel in the history of New York City and the nation.”
The slurry wall - Exposed slurry wall makes up one of the museum walls
River water line valve – carried water from the Hudson River to an underground refrigeration plant. After the collapse of the Twin Towers these valves where closed to prevent flooding.
There is a live Webcam of the 9/11 Memorial their website.