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Construction of New York City's One World Trade Center was deferred until 2006 because of disputes between the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and the developer. Tishman Realty & Construction is the selected builder. The building reached ground level on May 17, 2008, and was topped out on May 10, 2013. One World Trade Center opened to tenants on November 3, 2014, and One World Observatory opened to the public on May 28, 2015.

The collapse of the World Trade Center occurred during the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, after the Twin Towers were struck by two hijacked commercial airliners. One World Trade Center (WTC 1, or the North Tower) was hit at 8:46 a.m. Eastern time and collapsed at 10:28 a.m. Two World Trade Center (WTC 2, or the South Tower) was hit at 9:03 a.m. and collapsed at 9:59 a.m. The resulting debris severely damaged or destroyed more than a dozen other adjacent and nearby structures, ultimately leading to the collapse of 7 World Trade Center at 5:21 p.m. A total of 2,763 people were killed in the crashes, fires, and subsequent collapses, including 2,192 civilians, 343 firefighters, and 71 law enforcement officers as well as all the passengers and crew on the airplanes, which included 147 civilians and the 10 hijackers. In September 2005, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) published the results of its investigation into the collapse. The investigators did not find anything substandard in the design of the twin towers, noting that the severity of the attacks was beyond anything experienced in buildings in the past. They determined the fires to be the main cause of the collapses, finding that sagging floors pulled inward on the perimeter columns, causing them to bow and then to buckle. Once the upper section of the building began to move downwards, a total progressive collapse was unavoidable. The cleanup of the World Trade Center site involved round-the-clock operations and cost hundreds of millions of dollars. Some surrounding structures that were not hit by the airplanes still sustained significant damage, requiring them to be torn down. Demolition of the surrounding damaged buildings continued even as new construction proceeded on the Twin Towers' replacement, the new One World Trade Center, which was opened in November 2014.

The World Trade Center site, often referred to as "Ground Zero" or "the Pile" immediately after the September 11 attacks, is a 14.6-acre (5.9 ha) area in Lower Manhattan in New York City. The site is bounded by Vesey Street to the north, the West Side Highway to the west, Liberty Street to the south, and Church Street to the east. The Port Authority owns the site's land (except for 7 World Trade Center). The original World Trade Center complex stood on the site until it was destroyed in the September 11 attacks. The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey (PANYNJ), Silverstein Properties, and the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation (LMDC) have overseen the reconstruction of the site as part of the new World Trade Center, following a master plan by Studio Daniel Libeskind. Developer Larry Silverstein holds the lease to retail and office space in four of the site's buildings.

The construction of the first World Trade Center complex in New York City was conceived as an urban renewal project to help revitalize Lower Manhattan spearheaded by David Rockefeller. The project was developed by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. The idea for the World Trade Center arose after World War II as a way to supplement existing avenues of international commerce in the United States. The World Trade Center was originally planned to be built on the east side of Lower Manhattan, but the New Jersey and New York state governments, which oversee the Port Authority, could not agree on this location. After extensive negotiations, the New Jersey and New York state governments agreed to support the World Trade Center project, which was built at the site of Radio Row in the Lower West Side of Manhattan, New York City. To make the agreement acceptable to New Jersey, the Port Authority agreed to take over the bankrupt Hudson & Manhattan Railroad, which brought commuters from New Jersey to the Lower Manhattan site and, upon the Port Authority's takeover of the railroad, was renamed PATH. The Port Authority hired architect Minoru Yamasaki, who came up with the specific idea for twin towers. The towers were designed as framed tube structures, which provided tenants with open floor plans, uninterrupted by columns or walls. This was accomplished using numerous closely spaced perimeter columns to provide much of the strength to the structure, along with gravity load shared with the core columns. The elevator system, which made use of sky lobbies and a system of express and local elevators, allowed substantial floor space to be freed up for use as office space by making the structural core smaller. The design and construction of the World Trade Center, most centrally its twin towers, involved many other innovative techniques, such as the slurry wall for digging the foundation, and wind tunnel experiments. Construction of the World Trade Center's North Tower began in August 1968, and the South Tower in 1969. Extensive use of prefabricated components helped to speed up the construction process. The first tenants moved into the North Tower in December 1970 and into the South Tower in January 1972. Four other low-level buildings were constructed as part of the World Trade Center in the early 1970s, and the complex was mostly complete by 1973. A seventh building, 7 World Trade Center, was opened in 1987.

The National September 11 Memorial & Museum (also known as the 9/11 Memorial & Museum) is a memorial and museum in New York City commemorating the September 11, 2001 attacks, which killed 2,977 people, and the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, which killed six. The memorial is located at the World Trade Center site, the former location of the Twin Towers that were destroyed during the September 11 attacks. It is operated by a non-profit institution whose mission is to raise funds for, program, and operate the memorial and museum at the World Trade Center site. A memorial was planned in the immediate aftermath of the attacks and destruction of the World Trade Center for the victims and those involved in rescue and recovery operations. The winner of the World Trade Center Site Memorial Competition was Israeli-American architect Michael Arad of Handel Architects, a New York- and San Francisco-based firm. Arad worked with landscape-architecture firm Peter Walker and Partners on the design, creating a forest of swamp white oak trees with two square reflecting pools in the center marking where the Twin Towers stood. In August 2006, the World Trade Center Memorial Foundation and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey began heavy construction on the memorial and museum. The design is consistent with the original master plan by Daniel Libeskind, which called for the memorial to be 30 feet (9.1 m) below street level—originally 70 feet (21 m)—in a plaza, and was the only finalist to disregard Libeskind's requirement that the buildings overhang the footprints of the Twin Towers. The World Trade Center Memorial Foundation was renamed the National September 11 Memorial & Museum in 2007.A dedication ceremony commemorating the tenth anniversary of the attacks was held at the memorial on September 11, 2011, and it opened to the public the following day. The museum was dedicated on May 15, 2014, with remarks from then mayor of New York City Michael Bloomberg and then President Barack Obama. Six days later, the museum opened to the public.

William G. Biggart (July 20, 1947 – September 11, 2001) was an American freelance photojournalist and a victim of the September 11 attacks, notable for his street-view photographs of the event before being killed by the collapse of the World Trade Center's North Tower. He was the only professional photographer to be killed while covering the attacks.On September 15, 2001, Biggart's remains were discovered along with a bag containing his three cameras and the CompactFlash card from which his last photographs were recovered. The photos were used in the October 15, 2001 issue of Newsweek. His photographs from 9/11 were exhibited at the International Center of Photography and the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History. They have also been preserved on the Internet by The Digital Journalist.

Sky Gate, New York was a sculpture by the artist Louise Nevelson, located in the mezzanine of the North Tower of the World Trade Center in New York, from 1978 until its 2001 destruction in the collapse of the buildings during the September 11 attacks.Nevelson was inspired by a New York skyline view she had seen from a flight from New York to Washington, saying the work was a translation of the skyline, calling her sculpture a "night piece" representing the "windows of New York".

The 1975 World Trade Center fire was a case of arson at the 1 World Trade Center in Lower Manhattan, New York occurring on February 12, 1975. The initial fire was started, and spread from the 11th floor from between the 9th and 14th floors, but was quickly extinguished by firefighters. The arsonist was later caught three months later on May 20 and was identified to be Oswald Adorno, a custodian working at the WTC, who's motive was because he was "disgruntled with his employer," said by Fire Commissioner Stephen J. Murphy. There were no direct casualties and only minor injuries were sustained, with a few cases of smoke inhalation; costs in damages were estimated to be $1,000,000. In 1981, a $45 million sprinkler system was approved and began installation into the building as a result of the fire. A few laws in New York regarding fire safety were updated as well.

The 1998 Bank of America robbery was a bank robbery of $1.6 million in cash at the Bank of America in 1 World Trade Center, in New York City, on January 14, 1998. The robbery was plotted and executed by an actor and petty criminal with connections to the DeCavalcante crime family named Ralph Guarino. Guarino received some intelligence from a WTC worker named Salvatore Calciano, who told him about the increased security that followed the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and would later give him his employee ID badge from a friend of Calciano. He also told Guarino when a Brink's armored truck would arrive to deliver money via elevator to the 11th floor of the North Tower (Tower One) of the WTC. The two of them planned the robbery and recruited three other criminals to complete the actual robbery: Richie Gillette, 39, from Windsor Terrace, Brooklyn, as well as his friends Melvin Folk, 44, and Mike Reed, 34. On Wednesday, January 14, 1998, a Brink's van pulled up to the World Trade Center at around 8:30 a.m. and began unloading some bags of money. Only Gillette wore a ski mask to make it more difficult for others to identify him. They successfully subdued the WTC employees and guards to steal the bags. They took a total of $1.6 million (worth $2.7 million today). The robbers exited the WTC at 8:45 a.m. In the aftermath of the robbery, Folk and Reed returned to their old neighborhoods and were quickly identified and captured. Gillette was questioned by security after boarding an Amtrak train but was not detained at the time. He was later found and arrested in Albuquerque, New Mexico, two days later, at 8:30 pm. January 16. The FBI did not believe the three had acted alone and began to search for a mastermind. Guarino had various ideas of how to get rid of the money but ultimately was unable to follow through on any plans before FBI agents came to arrest him at his Staten Island home. Following his arrest, Guarino agreed to become an FBI informant on the DeCavalcante mafia family.

United Airlines Flight 175 was a domestic passenger flight that was hijacked by five al-Qaeda terrorists on September 11, 2001, as part of the September 11 attacks. The flight's scheduled plan was from Logan International Airport, in Boston, Massachusetts, to Los Angeles International Airport, in Los Angeles, California. The Boeing 767-200 aircraft was deliberately crashed into the South Tower of the World Trade Center in New York City, killing all 65 people aboard and an unknown number in the building's impact zone. Approximately thirty minutes into the flight, the hijackers forcibly breached the cockpit and overpowered the captain and first officer, allowing lead hijacker and trained pilot Marwan al-Shehhi to take over the controls, after murdering Captain Victor Saracini from Yardley, Pennsylvania and First Officer Michael Horrocks from Glen Mills, Pennsylvania. Unlike Flight 11, whose transponder was turned off, Flight 175's transponder was visible on New York Center's radar, which depicted the aircraft's deviation from its assigned flight path for four minutes before air traffic controllers took notice at 08:51 EDT. Thereafter, they made several unsuccessful attempts to contact the cockpit. Several passengers and crew members aboard made phone calls to family members and relayed information regarding the hijackers and casualties suffered by passengers and crew. The aircraft crashed into Tower Two (the South Tower) of the World Trade Center at 09:03. The Flight 175 hijacking was coordinated with that of American Airlines Flight 11, which struck the upper floors of Tower One (the North Tower) 17 minutes earlier. The crash of Flight 175 into the South Tower was the only impact televised live around the world. The crash and subsequent fire caused the South Tower to collapse 56 minutes later at 09:59, resulting in hundreds of additional casualties. During the recovery effort at the World Trade Center site, workers uncovered and identified remains from some Flight 175 victims, but many other body fragments could not be identified.

Windows on the World was a complex of dining, meeting, and entertainment venues on the top floors (106th and 107th) of the North Tower (Building One) of the original World Trade Center complex in Lower Manhattan.It included a restaurant called Windows on the World, a smaller restaurant called Wild Blue (before 1999 was called "Cellar in the Sky"), a bar called The Greatest Bar on Earth (which had previously been the Hors d'Oeuvrerie) as well as a wine school and conference and banquet rooms for private functions located on the 106th floor. Developed by restaurateur Joe Baum and designed initially by Warren Platner, Windows on the World occupied 50,000 square feet (4,600 m2) of space in the North Tower. The Skydive Restaurant, which was a 180 seat cafeteria on the 44th floor of 1 WTC conceived for office workers, was also operated by Windows on the World.The restaurants opened on April 19, 1976, and were destroyed in the September 11 attacks. All of the staff members who were present in the restaurant on the day of the attacks perished; escape was not possible from the 92nd floor up.

The Austin J. Tobin Plaza, also known as the World Trade Center Plaza, was a large public square that was located on the World Trade Center site from 1966 until its destruction during the September 11 attacks in 2001. It covered 5 acres (220,000 sq ft; 2.0 ha), making it the largest plaza in New York City by acreage at the time. The plaza opened on April 4, 1973, and was renamed after Austin J. Tobin in 1982. Several sculptures were located there, including The Sphere and Ideogram. The plaza was damaged by a car bomb in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, and it was destroyed eight years later in the September 11 attacks.