Liberty Park

The Tribute in Light is an art installation created in remembrance of the September 11 attacks. It consists of 88 vertical searchlights arranged in two columns of light to represent the Twin Towers. It stands six blocks south of the World Trade Center on top of the Battery Parking Garage in New York City. Tribute in Light began as a temporary commemoration of the attacks in early 2002, but it became an annual event, currently produced on September 11 by the Municipal Art Society of New York. The Tribute in Light was conceived by artists John Bennett, Gustavo Bonevardi, Richard Nash Gould, Julian LaVerdiere, and Paul Myoda, and lighting consultant Paul Marantz.On clear nights, the lights can be seen from over 60 miles (97 km) away, visible in all of New York City and most of suburban Northern New Jersey and Long Island. The lights can also be seen in Fairfield County, Connecticut, as well as Westchester, Orange, and Rockland counties in New York.The two beams cost approximately $1,626 (assuming $0.11 per kWh) to run for 24 hours. The 88 xenon spotlights (44 for each tower) each consume 7,000 watts. As of 2011, the annual cost for the entire project was about half a million dollars.Due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the perceived need for social distancing, it was originally announced that the installation would not light up on the 19th anniversary of the attacks in September 2020, for the first time since its creation. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo later announced that the state would provide health care personnel and supervision to allow the tribute to be held as scheduled.

The Sphere (officially Große Kugelkaryatide N.Y., also known as Sphere at Plaza Fountain, WTC Sphere or Koenig Sphere) is a monumental cast bronze sculpture by German artist Fritz Koenig (1924–2017).The world's largest bronze sculpture of modern times stood between the twin towers on the Austin J. Tobin Plaza of the World Trade Center in New York City from 1971 until the September 11, 2001, attacks. The work, weighing more than 20 tons, was the only remaining work of art to be recovered largely intact from the ruins of the collapsed twin towers. After being dismantled and stored near a hangar at John F. Kennedy International Airport, the sculpture was the subject of the 2001 documentary Koenig's Sphere. Since then, the bronze sphere has become a memorial for the attacks. The spherical caryatid was installed in Battery Park between 2002 and 2017, when the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey moved it back close to its original location. Having become a major tourist attraction, the sculpture was rededicated at its permanent location on August 16, 2017, although the sculpture was not restored. The Sphere is installed in Liberty Park, overlooking the September 11 Memorial and its original location.

Liberty Street Ferry Terminal or Liberty Street Terminal was the Central Railroad of New Jersey's passenger ferry slip in lower Manhattan, New York City and the point of departure and embarkation for passengers travelling on the Central Railroad of New Jersey, Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, Reading Railroad and the Lehigh Valley Railroad from the Communipaw Terminal across the Hudson River in Jersey City.

America's Response Monument, subtitled De Oppresso Liber, is a life-and-a-half scale bronze statue in Liberty Park overlooking the National September 11 Memorial & Museum in New York City. Unofficially known as the Horse Soldier Statue, it is the first publicly accessible monument dedicated to the United States Special Forces. It was also the first monument near Ground Zero to recognize heroes of the September 11 terrorist attacks.The statue was conceived by sculptor Douwe Blumberg and first sold in 2003 as a small-scale, 18 inches (460 mm) version. In April 2011, an anonymous group of Wall Street bankers who lost friends in the 9/11 attacks commissioned a large, 16 feet (4.9 m) tall version. It was dedicated on Veteran's Day, November 11, 2011, in a ceremony led by Vice President Joe Biden and Lt. Gen. John Mulholland, commander of Task Force Dagger and U.S. Army Special Operations Command during Operation Enduring Freedom.The statue commemorates the service members of America's Special Operations forces and their response to 9/11, including those who fought during the first stages of the Afghanistan war. This operation led to the initial defeat of the Taliban in Afghanistan, although the Taliban would ultimately be victorious following their 20-year-long war with the United States.

Cortlandt Street Ferry Depot was the main ferry terminal of the Pennsylvania Railroad and the West Shore Railroad on the North River (Hudson River) in lower Manhattan. The railroads operated ferries to their terminal stations on the Hudson River waterfront in New Jersey at Exchange Place and Weehawken, respectively. The depot was next to Liberty Street Ferry Terminal from which the Central Railroad of New Jersey operated its Communipaw ferry to Communipaw Terminal.

The St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church, officially the St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church and National Shrine, is a church and shrine under construction in the World Trade Center in Manhattan, New York City. It is administered by the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America and is being developed by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, based on the design of Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava. The church is set to be completed in April 2022, coinciding with the Orthodox Holy Week, and will be consecrated July 4, 2022.St. Nicholas will replace the original church of the same name that was destroyed during the September 11 attacks in 2001—the only house of worship, and only building outside the original World Trade Center complex, to be completely destroyed. The new church is located in Liberty Park, overlooking the National September 11 Memorial & Museum. Its architecture draws from Byzantine influences, namely the Church of the Savior and the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, as well as from the Parthenon in Athens. In addition to serving as a Greek Orthodox parish, St. Nicholas is officially planned as a "House of Prayer for all people" that will function as a national shrine and community center, incorporating a secular bereavement space, social hall, and various educational and interfaith programs.Initially scheduled to open in 2016, St. Nicholas' rebuilding effort was beset by delays, cost overruns, and claims of financial impropriety. In 2019, the nonprofit Friends of St. Nicholas was founded to help complete the project, which continued under the auspices of the newly elected Archbishop Elpidophoros. The church was partially opened for a memorial service commemorating the 20th anniversary of the September 11 attacks.

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.

Hotel Attraction was a proposal by architect Antoni Gaudí for a skyscraper in Lower Manhattan, New York City.

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.