Community Day
The day before the anniversary, we hosted our annual Community Day — dedicated time for 9/11 and 2/26/1993 family members, family members of those who are sick or who have died from 9/11-related illnesses, rescue and recovery workers, active duty first responders, 9/11 survivors, active duty military and veterans, lower Manhattan residents and business owners, and active and retired flight crew members to experience the Museum together. 

2022 community partners included Crisis Response Canines, the FDNY Foundation, First Responder’s Children Foundation, and the 9/11 Memorial Trail. The World Trade Center Health Program and Victim Compensation Fund also hosted an in information session.

Anniversary in the Schools
This year's Anniversary in the Schools program — a 35-minute film featuring detailed accounts of 9/11 by first responders from the FDNY and PAPD, a 9/11 survivor, and a 9/11 advocate — reached more than half a million participants across all 50 states, Washington D.C., Guam, American Samoa, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and 18 other countries. Those who missed the program can still view it here. 

Anniversary in the Theatres
We partnered with AMC Theatres on a brand-new initiative complementing the Anniversary in the Schools program. Anniversary in the Theaters offered groups and organizations across the country a special opportunity to host screenings of the program at local AMC Theatres. Approximately 800 guests — including teachers, students, and first responders — attended events in Arizona, Colorado, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, and New York. 

Remember the Sky & Remembrance Wall
Once again this year, we invited the public to engage in commemoration online through our Remember the Sky social media campaign. Nearly 75,000 people interacted with the campaign on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, posting photos of skies around the world to symbolize our unity and noting the occasion with the hashtag #neverforget911. Hundreds more submitted personal memories and messages to the Remembrance Wall. 

In the News
Local and national press showcased the anniversary commemoration, the ongoing impact of 9/11, and the stories of those killed. Selected coverage included: 

• The New York Times: Columns & Commentary: Witness (pictured at left), an interview with Memorial pool cleaner Jim Maroon
• The New York Times: Marking 9/11, Biden Remembers 'the Precious Lives Stolen From Us
• CBS News: Interview with President and CEO Alice Greenwald  
• FOX News: Birthday Roses at Ground Zero
• WPIX: Sisters of 9/11 Victims Share Their Grief
• NY1: Interview with President and CEO Alice Greenwald
• CNN: Last Portrait
• WRC-DC: Interview with first responders David Lim and Sal Puglisi

By 9/11 Memorial Staff

Remember the Sky Social Media Activation
Participate in our Remember the Sky social media campaign, an active remembrance that recognizes how we are all connected to one another under the same big sky. Snap a picture of the sky where you are - no matter the weather - and post it to Instagram. Get the details here. 

Share Your Remembrances 
In addition to our Remember the Sky activation, we invite you to commemorate September 11 with your own remembrances and thoughtful posts. Right click on the images below to include them. Please be sure to tag us at @911memorial and include the hashtag #neverforget911. Please also be sure to review our guidelines for proper usage. 

Kerry: We're the same age. I was also four when it happened, but I have some memories of knowing something was wrong. 

And then, growing up on Staten Island, I have a lot of family and friends who are first responders who would tell me some of their personal experiences of the attacks or the clean-up after. 

Ella: Do you have a favorite part about working at the museum? 

Kerry: Getting to work with people who have these really, really personal connections to 9/11. Their strength and devotion to this place is inspiring. It's made my day over and over and over again when I go to work. What about you?

Ella: I think my favorite part is giving tours to young people, kids who aren't that much younger than me, who either weren't alive that day, or don't remember it. They are extremely respectful and curious. 

Kerry: Yeah, I love that part of being a guide — watching people understand these things for the first time. 

Ella: Exactly. I want them to know how our world has changed. Like understanding why we go through such airport security. That may seem like a small thing, but there are so many small things like that, which have completely altered American society and culture.

Kerry: I like to point out how many people were part of the recovery process. I want them to know how many people came back day after day for months, risking their lives to help put the city back together. I think in that part of the story you see the best in people. People really showed up for one another that day. 

Ella: Yeah, I agree. Resilience in the aftermath and recovery is incredibly inspiring. Putting ourselves back together — a process of rebuilding.

Kerry: What does the promise to “Never Forget” mean to you?
 
Ella: Remembering all of the victims and learning their personal stories. That is something I try to do as a guide. 

But everyone who visits the Museum has their own emotional reactions, and they can be very different. So I think “Never Forget” means to try to hold all those experiences and beliefs in your heart all at once. 

Kerry: I think it means, like you said, never to forget the people. To remember what happened to them, to keep telling their stories, and keep saying their names — make sure that they are not forgotten.

Ella Hester is a Senior Interpretive Guide in the Education Department at the 9/11 Memorial & Museum. Ella was born and raised in Brooklyn and attended Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School for the Performing Arts. After graduating from the University of Chicago with a BA in History and Creative Writing, she is currently finishing her Master’s in Biography and Memoir at the CUNY Graduate Center.

Kerry Pfaff is the Assistant Manager of Interpretive Programs – Docent Program at the 9/11 Memorial & Museum. Kerry was born and raised in Staten Island, and went to high school at Brooklyn Tech. After graduating from the University of Mary Washington with a BA in Historic Preservation, she is currently finishing up her Master’s in Urban Studies at the CUNY School for Labor and Urban Studies.

As we approach the 21st anniversary of 9/11 attacks, we're once again highlighting the Memorial Beautification Initiative, designed to foster community engagement through local 9/11 memorials across the country. Last year, ahead of the milestone 20th anniversary of the attacks, our Visionary Network launched the initiative to clean and restore community 9/11 memorials; Visionaries themselves helped preserve memorials in their own communities by planting flowers, cleaning the grounds, or simply stopping by to reflect and remember those lost. Read more about the launch. 

We're now once again calling for participation in this meaningful program. The Memorials Registry tracks many 9/11 memorials in the United States and around the world; you can use it to find and volunteer at a memorial near you. 

The Visionary Network was founded in early 2020. It provides an opportunity for people between the ages of 21 and 45 to deepen their understanding of the attacks of September 11 and to fulfill a commitment to never forget the lives lost, the sacrifices made, and the ongoing consequences of the day through acts of advocacy, commemoration, and community engagement. It's free to join the Visionary Network; sign up here.

If you have any questions about the Visionary Network or would like to host a volunteer day at a 9/11 memorial in your community, please email visionary@911memorial.org. 

By 9/11 Memorial Staff

Todd Stone was at his Tribeca studio on September 11, 2001, when the deafening sound of two ill-fated jetliners - eerily low-flying - shattered his morning routine. Within minutes, he had run to the building's roof, where he watched, sketched, and photographed in horror as the Twin Towers were struck, burned, and collapsed just six blocks away. 

Stone ultimately channeled the trauma of what he'd seen into "Witness," a series documenting that catastrophic morning. "10:45 am," the gift of Jerome and Nancy Kohlberg, is one of two pieces from the series housed in the Museum's permanent collection. 

But for the artist, the 9/11 experience did not end with unfathomable loss and destruction. It continued for two more decades, evolving and coming to symbolize rebirth and strength. Now, to mark the 20th anniversary of the attacks, the New York Culture Club - a gallery at the Oculus - showcases Stone's perspective on the rebuilding of lower Manhattan with a solo exhibition. Running through September 30, "Renewal" features 30 oil, watercolor, and digital media works that capture the downtown rebuilding effort and the 12 years he spent as part of a revived, high-rise studio residency program for artists begun in the 1990s by the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council and the Port Authority in the original Twin Towers. 

"Downtown has come a long way over the last 20 years," Stone said in a press release announcing the exhibition. "And the rebuilding shows the resilience of the collective human spirit that all should celebrate. My work is an elegy for those lost here and a celebration of the workers and community who brought the vision of the rebuilt World Trade Center to life again." 

"Renewal" is on view at the New York Culture Club - Oculus C1 Level, 185 Greenwich Street, through the end of the month. 

By 9/11 Memorial Staff

We are deeply grateful to the tens of thousands of you who joined us in remembrance this weekend, in person or online, in lower Manhattan, at the Pentagon, in Shanksville, PA, or from cities across the country and around the world. Whether you watched the commemoration ceremony, viewed the Tribute in Light, or posted photos of the sky we share, your support helps ensure that a new generation will #NeverForget911. Please follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram for additional photos, or visit neverforget.org to learn more.

By 9/11 Memorial Staff

On September 11, 2021, I will turn 20 years old. 

20. Twenty years. Two decades. It is hard for me to wrap my mind around these numbers, in part because my entire life has been defined by the numbers 9/11 and the number 2,996: the number of people that died on the day I was born in New York City.

My entire life, all 20 years, has been a balancing of sadness and hope. Again and again, we choose hope. 

As I reflect on turning 20 this September 11, the one truth I have learned about life is that hope is always the answer. Hope, I have learned, is a way to remember and honor those we lost, and to cherish life in their memory.

My birth story, a story I cannot remember, of course, but which my parents have told me countless times, was a symbol of hope not only to them but to countless others on one of our country’s darkest days, and in the days and years after. At 8 1/2 months pregnant, my mom, a lawyer at the Legal Aid Society, was on her way to work on that sunny Tuesday with a cloudless blue sky. When she got off the subway at Chambers Street that morning, she saw the North Tower on fire and began walking the 100 New York City blocks – five miles – to my dad, who was at their apartment on the Upper West Side. On that long walk uptown, my mom realized the baby – me – was not moving, so she and my dad jumped into a cab, trying to get to Mt. Sinai Hospital. A police barricade stopped them from entering Central Park. My dad jumped out to explain that his wife was in labor, and then two NYPD cars escorted my parents’ cab to the hospital, lights and sirens blaring. I was born by emergency c-section at 5 p.m. that day. My mom and dad became new parents just hours after thousands lost their lives in the exact spot my mom had started her day. Sadness and hope.

After I was born, my parents feared that my life would be dominated by acts of terrorism and a changed, dark world. But my childhood – we moved from New York to my parents’ hometown of Shaker Heights, Ohio when I was four – was a childhood of birthday parties, ice skating, sledding down the hill at Thornton Park in the winter and apple picking at Patterson’s Apple Farm in the fall. It was the childhood my parents dreamed I would have, a childhood I loved.

In the summer of 2019, approaching my 18th birthday, I visited the 9/11 Memorial & Museum for the first time, returning to the place where my mom started her journey to bring me into the world. It was this visit that transformed my birth story for me, from something that happened to my parents to my own calling – a calling that ties me, like a tether across time, to the victims and first responders of 9/11. I placed a rose on the Memorial by the name Alena Sesinova, whose birthday, I learned, fell that day. Alena, who immigrated to the United States from Prague and lived in Brooklyn Heights, was 57 when she died in the World Trade Center on 9/11. She worked in Information Technology at Marsh & McLennan, and was very proud of the seven-room apartment she owned. I will forever think of Alena on my birthday, the day her life ended and mine began.

My visit to the Memorial inspired me to host an assembly at my high school – Shaker Heights High School – on my 18th birthday. I wanted to help share with my friends and classmates – all born around 9/11 – the ways we might carry on the message of hope that 9/11 teaches us. 

Little did we know that our graduating class was about to be tested in a way that was just as scary as the tests our parents faced in 2001. COVID-19 hit in the beginning of our final semester. The world went into lockdown, schools went online, senior proms were canceled, graduations took place virtually. We spent months in our childhood bedrooms, looking at our friends and teachers through the lens of Zoom. 

But I think the circumstances of our birth and what our parents had to endure in the aftermath of 9/11 were somehow planted deep within us, because what I observed in my classmates and in myself during the pandemic was endless hope. We knew that, someway or somehow, we would have experiences and adventures and happiness again, just as we did when we were children. 

The pandemic wore on much longer than any of us thought it would, and my freshman year at Ohio State consisted of online classes in my dorm room and weekly COVID-19 tests. I did not meet a single teacher in person. My classmates and I attended no OSU football games. We did, however, cheer loudly at the TV when the Buckeyes beat Clemson to advance to the national championship, and we cried loudly when they lost to Alabama in the title game.

And we continued to hope.

Vaccines arrived this past spring, and I moved into the sorority house last week to start my sophomore year. I am taking my first-ever in-person college classes this semester. Walking the campus with my books and laptop, I feel for the first time like a real college student. This fall, the OSU campus in Columbus is alive with students, and OSU made the brave decision to require vaccination for all students and faculty, to ensure the health of our school community. As a proud Buckeye, I am filled with hope as this school year begins.

And most exciting of all: on my 20th birthday – September 11, 2021 – I will attend the Buckeyes’ first home game of the year in person at the Horseshoe with my friends, right here in Columbus. I will cheer with all my heart for our team, and celebrate and think of Alena Sesinova as we continue to hope for good things to come.

The theme of my 20 years of life is hope, and through my hope I honor those lost on the day I was born. Wishing peace to all those who remember loved ones lost on 9/11. Hope lives on.

Go Bucks!

By Caleigh Leiken, Ohio State University sophomore born in New York on 9/11/01. Read the blog post she wrote about her first visit to the Memorial in 2019.