9/11 MEMORIAL: The Complete History of the September 11 Memorial & Museum, Remembering the Victims, Honoring Their Stories, and Understanding the Legacy of 9/11
About this ebook
On September 11, 2001, nearly 3,000 people lost their lives in New York, at the Pentagon, and near Shanksville, Pennsylvania. In the years that followed, another historic challenge emerged: how could the World Trade Center site be transformed into a memorial worthy of those who died while also preserving the evidence, stories, and human experiences of that terrible day?
This book follows that remarkable journey—from the devastation of Ground Zero and the nine-month recovery operation to the rebuilding of Lower Manhattan, the international World Trade Center Memorial competition, and Michael Arad and Peter Walker's groundbreaking Reflecting Absence design.
Discover how the 9/11 Memorial was conceived, debated, engineered, constructed, and finally opened on September 11, 2011, exactly ten years after the attacks. Explore the meaning behind the twin reflecting pools, the bronze names, the principle of “meaningful adjacency,” the Survivor Tree, and the landscape surrounding the Memorial.
The story then moves beneath the plaza into the National September 11 Memorial & Museum, exploring its underground architecture, preserved World Trade Center foundations, slurry wall, Foundation Hall, Last Column, Survivors' Stairs, and remarkable collection of artifacts and firsthand testimony. The manuscript describes the Museum's collaboration among architects, landscape architects, exhibition designers, curators, archivists, survivors, first responders, victims' families, and other contributors.
Inside the Museum, readers are guided through the history presented in Before 9/11, Events of the Day, and After 9/11, followed by the deeply personal In Memoriam exhibition, Foundation Hall, survivor testimony, and the stories behind the names.
The book also examines the people behind the Memorial and Museum: the victims whose names are permanently inscribed in bronze, the first responders and survivors, the families who fought to preserve individual stories, and the generations who will come to know September 11 through history, education, memory, and institutions like the Memorial and Museum.
From Ground Zero and the World Trade Center to the 9/11 Memorial pools, Survivor Tree, Reflecting Absence, September 11 Memorial Museum, Foundation Hall, Last Column, preserved artifacts, survivor stories, and commemorations, this is a comprehensive narrative of the place created to ensure that the history and humanity of September 11 are not forgotten.
Whether you are researching 9/11 history, the World Trade Center, Ground Zero, New York City history, memorial architecture, museum design, the victims of September 11, first responders, or the legacy of 9/11, this book offers a focused account of how one of America's most consequential historical sites came to exist—and why its mission of remembrance continues.
Remember the victims. Understand the Memorial. Explore the Museum. Never Forget.
