9/11 Memorial

The two reflecting pools sit in the exact footprints of the Twin Towers. Each one is nearly an acre in size. Water cascades thirty feet down the sides, then drops another twenty feet into a central void. The architect, Michael Arad, described them as "absence made visible." Although water flows continuously into the voids, they can never be filled.

Bronze panels around the edges of each pool are inscribed with the names of every person killed in the September eleventh two thousand and one attacks and in the nineteen ninety-three World Trade Center bombing. The names are not arranged alphabetically — they are placed according to where people were and who they were with, so that colleagues and friends appear together.

Near the south pool stands the Survivor Tree — a callery pear that was pulled from the rubble in October two thousand and one. It was eight feet tall, badly burned, with one living branch. The Parks Department moved it to a nursery in the Bronx where it was nursed back to health. In December two thousand and ten, the tree — now thirty feet tall — was returned to the site. Each year, the memorial gives seedlings from this tree to communities that have experienced terrorism, violence, or natural disasters.

The four hundred swamp white oaks surrounding the pools were chosen because the species is native to all three crash sites: New York, Arlington, and Somerset County, Pennsylvania. The memorial plaza is free and open daily.