New York will on Friday commemorate 25 years since the September 11 attacks, with the anniversary ceremony bringing together former US presidents, bereaved families and thousands of mourners at the site where nearly 3,000 people lost their lives.
US President Donald Trump will not attend the ceremony in Lower Manhattan, choosing instead to mark the anniversary at the Pentagon, which was also targeted during the attacks.
Vice President JD Vance and four of Trump's living predecessors — George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Bill Clinton and Joe Biden — are expected at the Ground Zero memorial.
Bush was president when the attacks took place in 2001.
The ceremony will follow the traditional format, with no political speeches planned. Instead, relatives of the victims will read the names of all 2,977 people killed on September 11, while bells will mark key moments in the sequence of attacks.
For many families and survivors, the annual ceremony remains an important link between those who experienced the attacks and younger generations who have grown up without a personal memory of the tragedy.
“Memorials like this and discussions about those events are an important part of keeping it alive and understanding how we prevent tragedies like this from ever happening again,” said Robert Kafka, a Chicagoan in his 60s visiting the 9/11 Memorial.
Muslim mayor's presence sparks controversy
The ceremony has also become the centre of a political controversy over the presence of New York's first Muslim mayor, Zohran Mamdani.
Mamdani, a Democrat, is expected to attend the commemoration alongside the former presidents, despite a campaign calling for him to stay away.
The campaign was spearheaded by the right-wing New York Post and former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani.
A petition opposing Mamdani's attendance has gathered more than 100,000 signatures. It accuses the mayor of associating with unspecified individuals who are “dismissive of American institutions or insufficiently critical of extremist ideologies.”
The backlash has itself triggered criticism, with supporters of the mayor arguing that his religion should not determine whether he is welcome at a ceremony commemorating the victims of terrorism.
“It’s concerning to me that the mayor is being treated differently simply because he is Muslim,” city council member Shahana Hanif told CNN.
Mamdani has also won praise from some quarters for recently releasing thousands of documents concerning what city officials knew about the toxic air that filled Lower Manhattan following the collapse of the World Trade Center.
Lingering health crisis
The physical destruction caused by the attacks lasted far beyond the morning of September 11.
After the Twin Towers collapsed, a massive cloud of dust and debris engulfed Lower Manhattan. Pollution and toxic dust continued to affect the area for months, with thousands of first responders, residents and workers later developing serious illnesses, including cancers.
Mamdani has sharply criticised the handling of the air-quality crisis.
“People got sick because the leaders they trusted lied and told them they were safe to breathe in toxic air,” Mamdani said Tuesday.
The health consequences have continued decades after the attacks. More than 9,400 people have died from 9/11-related illnesses, according to the federal programme created to provide medical care and support to people affected by the attacks.
Remembering how it began
On the morning of September 11, 2001, 19 Al-Qaeda operatives hijacked four passenger aircraft in one of the most devastating terrorist attacks in modern history.
Two of the planes were flown into the World Trade Center's Twin Towers in Lower Manhattan. The impact and resulting fires eventually caused both 110-storey buildings to collapse.
A third aircraft crashed into the Pentagon outside Washington, while a fourth came down in a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, after passengers attempted to overpower the hijackers.
The attacks killed 2,977 people and fundamentally changed the United States, reshaping its foreign policy, national security measures and public life.
A quarter of a century later, however, millions of Americans have no personal memory of the day.
About 100 million Americans were either not born or were too young to remember the attacks, making the preservation of first-hand accounts increasingly important.
'The next generation just can't fathom'
For families who lost loved ones, the anniversary is also a reminder that the consequences of September 11 have continued across generations.
Logan Miller, 32, lost his uncle in the attacks and later lost his grandfather to a 9/11-related illness.
“I think the next generation just can’t fathom what actually transpired and how someone could be impacted by that, and so I actually find them asking more questions,” he told AFP.
His experience reflects a wider challenge facing those responsible for preserving the memory of September 11: ensuring that an event that increasingly belongs to history remains understandable to people who did not witness it.
Tight security around Ground Zero
Large crowds are expected in Lower Manhattan for Friday's commemoration, prompting a major security operation around the 9/11 Memorial and Museum.
The Secret Service has established a heavily secured perimeter around the site, while New York police are deploying additional measures to protect those attending the ceremony.
Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said an anti-drone team would be deployed as a precaution, although she stressed that authorities had no intelligence indicating a specific threat to the gathering.
The heightened security comes as Al-Qaeda has also marked the anniversary by releasing a video containing images of its late leader, Osama bin Laden, and his son Hamza, whom Trump said in 2019 had also been killed.
2,977 lights for 2,977 lives
Ahead of the anniversary ceremony, New York Harbor became the backdrop for a symbolic tribute to the victims.
A drone display featuring 2,977 lights rose over the harbour, with each light representing one of the people killed in the attacks.
Twenty-five years after the Twin Towers fell, the anniversary will once again bring New Yorkers together at Ground Zero — not only to remember those who died, but also to reflect on the lasting human, health and political consequences of a day that transformed America and the world.