Twenty-five years ago today, 2,977 people were taken from us in New York, at the Pentagon, and in a field in Pennsylvania. This is a look back at the people lost, the ones who ran in to help, and everything America built in the years since.
Twenty Five Years. Still Rising.
September 11, 2001, started like any other Tuesday. The sky over New York was a clear, bright blue. People caught trains, grabbed coffee, and boarded flights. Crews were already at work on job sites across the city.
By 10:28 a.m., the Twin Towers were gone, the Pentagon was burning, and United Flight 93 had gone down in a field in western Pennsylvania. In 102 minutes, 2,977 people were taken from us.
Twenty-five years later, we remember them.
The Day and the Days After
Most of the people lost that morning were simply starting their day. Office workers, traders, and receptionists. Cooks and servers at the restaurant at the top of the North Tower. Janitors, security guards, and window washers. Passengers and crew on four flights headed for California. Civilians and service members at their desks inside the Pentagon. The people lost that day came from more than 90 countries, and every one of them had someone waiting at home.
When the planes hit, firefighters ran in while everyone else ran out. The FDNY lost 343 firefighters. The NYPD lost 23 officers, and the Port Authority Police lost 37. A young man in a red bandana led strangers down from the 78th floor of the South Tower, then went back up for more. Over Pennsylvania, the 40 passengers and crew of Flight 93 fought back, and their plane never reached Washington.
Within hours, the pile was covered with people. Firefighters, police officers, ironworkers, operating engineers, laborers, and volunteers stood shoulder to shoulder on the wreckage. Companies that had spent years bidding against each other sent their best people. On the pile, there were no rivals. Everyone was on the same crew.
They were searching for survivors. Lines of workers passed buckets of rubble hand to hand. Ironworkers cut through twisted steel with torches, some of them men who had helped build the towers in the 1960s. Search dogs crawled into gaps too small for a person. Every so often, the whole site went silent so crews could listen for a voice.
Only a few survivors were pulled out alive, all within the first two days. The rescue became a recovery, and the crews kept going. For nine months they worked day and night while fires burned below for more than 100 days. They cleared nearly two million tons of steel and concrete so families could bring their loved ones home. Each time the fallen were carried out, often under an American flag, the work stopped and the crews saluted.
The country stood with them. Boats carried hundreds of thousands of people off lower Manhattan. People waited hours to give blood. Volunteers brought food, water, and dry socks to the workers on the pile. In Gander, Newfoundland, a small town took in thousands of stranded passengers from 38 planes and treated them like family. A newspaper in France wrote, "We are all Americans."
On May 30, 2002, the last column came down, covered in the workers' signatures. No one gave a speech. They stood together in silence.
That silence returns every September 11. As families read the names, a bell rings six times, once for each plane and each tower that fell.
This year, a seventh bell rang for the first time.
It rang for the people who breathed in the dust. The air over lower Manhattan was full of crushed concrete, glass, metal, and asbestos. Firefighters, police, recovery workers, and volunteers breathed it for months. So did people who lived, worked, and went to school nearby. Years later, many of them got sick with cancers, lung disease, and other illnesses.
More people have now died from those illnesses than were lost on the day itself. The FDNY alone has lost more members to them than the 343 firefighters who died that morning. Many more are still sick today.
For them and their families, September 11 never really ended.
Rising Again
America rebuilds and remembers.
New York City
One World Trade Center, often called the Freedom Tower, opened in 2014. It stands 1,776 feet tall, for the year America was born.
7 World Trade Center opened in 2006, the first tower rebuilt at the site.
4 World Trade Center opened in 2013. 3 World Trade Center opened in 2018.
The Oculus, the World Trade Center's transportation hub, opened in 2016.
St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church and National Shrine opened in 2022. The original church, founded by Greek immigrants in 1916, was the only house of worship destroyed on 9/11. The new shrine is open to people of every faith.
The Perelman Performing Arts Center opened in 2023.
2 World Trade Center, the last major office tower planned for the site, broke ground this summer.
The National September 11 Memorial & Museum
The Memorial Pools opened on the tenth anniversary in 2011. They sit in the footprints of the Twin Towers, with the names of every person lost cut into the bronze around the edges.
The 9/11 Memorial Museum opened in 2014. It holds the Last Column, still covered in the signatures of the recovery workers.
The Survivor Tree was found in the rubble, burned and broken. It was nursed back to health and still blooms every spring.
The 9/11 Memorial Glade was dedicated in 2019. It honors everyone who has gotten sick or died from 9/11-related illnesses. Six large stones line its path, each inlaid with steel from the original towers.
The Pentagon
The Phoenix Project rebuilt the damaged section of the Pentagon in less than a year. A countdown clock on site read "Let's Roll," the words heard from Flight 93.
The National 9/11 Pentagon Memorial opened in 2008. It has 184 benches, one for each life lost there.
Shanksville, Pennsylvania
The Flight 93 National Memorial covers the field where the plane went down.
The Wall of Names follows the flight path, with a white marble panel for each of the 40 passengers and crew.
The Tower of Voices was dedicated in 2018. It stands 93 feet tall and holds 40 wind chimes, one for each voice lost.
Steel That Still Serves
The USS New York was built with 7.5 tons of World Trade Center steel in its bow. Its motto ends with two words: Never Forget.
The USS Arlington carries steel from the Pentagon.
The USS Somerset was built with steel from a crane that stood near the Flight 93 crash site.
All three ships are still in service today.
Today, We Remember
This morning, the bells rang again at the memorial. Families stood beside the pools and read the names of the people they lost, one by one. Flags flew at half-staff. Across the country, people stopped what they were doing and bowed their heads.
The people we remember today were not just names. They were someone's mom, someone's son, someone's best friend. They went to work that morning like any other day, and they never came home.
The people who rushed in to help did not ask for anything in return. Firefighters, medics, and police. Ironworkers, operators, and laborers. Neighbors, volunteers, and total strangers. They stood shoulder to shoulder. They carried each other, sometimes for days, sometimes for years.
That is the American spirit. It grieves together. It helps each other up. It perseveres. It was tested twenty-five years ago today, and it did not break. It still shows up every day, in the crews who start before sunrise and the neighbors who drop everything to help.
So today, take a moment of silence. Remember the 2,977. Remember the heroes who ran in, and everyone lost in the years since. Call the people you love. Thank someone who serves.
Never forgotten.
If you were a responder or recovery worker, or you lived, worked, or went to school near the World Trade Center site, you may qualify for no-cost health monitoring and treatment through the World Trade Center Health Program: cdc.gov/wtc
