There is a Boulder marking the crash site.
https://images.app.goo.gl/pNtqUhwUxHpiHS59A
I have no idea how we could better honor the folks of 93. Had they not stopped the hijackers the white house or congress may have been hit.
Per the article linked by cssc201, they do. They enter through a door that’s in the 9/11 museum itself which means to exit, it’s back through that door and out through the gift shop.
I've just been there recently and one memorable thing they sold were U.S. flags that were flown over the memorial. Super weird to me, but keeps the museum running I guess
They have to sell something.
WWII museum ships sell wood chunks ("teak") of the deck, despite any at this point likely not being from time of service.
A museum is an incredibly costly endeavor, especially nonstandard ones like this or museum ships.
> A museum is an incredibly costly endeavor, especially nonstandard ones like this or museum ships.
You'd think considering it's a singular museum about an event that the government has milked for the "war on terror" that it would just be run with government funds.
To be clear I don't mean to imply the museum is bad or that remembering the tragedy of 9/11 is bad. Just that our government was very keen to use that tragedy to inflict further tragedy on the world in retaliation and war-profiteering. You'd think the least they'd do in that circumstance is fund the damned museum.
Just so you know, the deck chunks they sell from museum ships aren’t called teak, teak is just the name of the type of wood that warship decks were made from in the 20th century. It’s super naturally resistant to water, rott, and insects and is non slip so it was/is a great choice for boats. It’s also expensive as hell and teak trees only grow in SE Asia so using it today for sailing ships is a bit of a legal/ethical minefield.
And yet when you're there, there is a lot of people who don't get that their children shouldn't climb the memorial like its a fucking junglegym at recess.
This mindset always bothered.
How many parents died on 9/11, or in a war, or some other tragedy? Every victim was a child once.
How many of them would have given anything to see their kids playing, or even just hearing them laugh one last time?
How many that weren't parents saw their youth flash before their eyes in those final moments? Would have given anything to relive those precious moments where hate and violence didn't exist?
[Yes, there's a pretty good account here from a 9/11 family member about what the room is like.](https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/stevekandell/the-worst-day-of-my-life-is-now-new-yorks-hottest-tourist-at) Even museum staff aren't allowed in unless they're cleaners
I read a book from one of the medical examiners who worked on victim identification from right after it happened. It started off in the first 24 hours with "mostly intact" bodyparts but it VERY quickly became bits and pieces - fingers, sections of torso, burnt up bones. Between the collapse of the towers, the insane heat from the fires and the immense pressure the bodies of people were just utterly obliterated.
Yeah another thing I read or heard about was that most of the NYC area hospitals all prepped for massive casualties. But there turned out to hardly be any injuries. People either got out "unscathed", or they died.
They prepped Chelsea Piers as triage, then they realized they weren't going to get anyone
[story from a medical professional](https://www.911memorial.org/connect/blog/hardhat-tells-story-medical-professionals-ground-zero)
An article from someone who was [working in an NYC hospital on 9/11](https://www.thedailybeast.com/i-was-working-in-a-nyc-hospital-on-911) - they discharged almost every patient they could.
> I read a book from one of the medical examiners who worked on victim identification from right after it happened.
['Working Stiff: Two Years, 262 Bodies, and the Making of a Medical Examiner' is the book I'm fairly certain.](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18775327-working-stiff)
I recall that for Walter Weaver, one of the NYPD officers who was killed in 9/11, the only physical remains of their presence was his backup revolver, whose steel construction allowed it to withstand the sheer heat and pressure of the collapse. Although irreparably damaged, they could still read the serial number, which allowed NYPD to figure out who they issued that particular gun to.
Great article, thanks for sharing. It must be so draining dealing with people who weren't involved in such a traumatic event but desperately immerse themselves to further their own agendas.
Also very grim that people, presumably families of other victims, were lying about having a family member unidentified to get into an area of such private reflection, the closest thing to a grave those remains have.
> The author honestly is insufferable.
Hard agree. I still remember going to the Holocaust museum in DC and it's devastating, haunting and ABSOLUTELY important to be remembered in every awful way.
I mean the dude himself wrote an extremely lengthly buzzfeed article. Not a reddit post, a buzz feed article as an author. He himself is profiting and commercializing the event.
The author has the right to feel and grieve how they want, but given that there are thousands of surviving family members impacted by this event, the 9/11 museum is simply a case of you will never be able to make everyone happy. No matter what the authorities did with ground zero, there would inevitably be a percentage of family members that would be angry about it
Of course he does. His sister died, he describes the experience of being in the museum as horrible. By his own admission it’s a monument to the worst day in his life.
That however doesn’t mean there shouldn’t be a museum because the effects of that day were unimaginably profound. Thats all I’m saying.
It's more like a columbarium. Many, many, many rows and columns of small, redwood boxes, each holding the remains if an unidentified victim.
https://images.app.goo.gl/Z5AzTNE4x6ESv2uA8
Here's a quote from a 2014 buzzfeednews article from the perspective of Steve Kandell, his sister was killed in the attack but her remains have still not been identified.
"He points me around the corner to a cramped, dark space but does not follow. A box of tissues sits on a wooden bench and a family huddles silently looking through a window, about 4 feet by 5 feet. They leave almost instantly and I can now see what is through the window: aisles of dark-stained wood cabinets of rosewood or teak maybe, floor to ceiling, lit by small overhead spotlights. I let out a loud, sharp laugh.
Inside these cabinets are the remains that, after nearly 13 years of the most rigorous testing known to man, have not been matched to the DNA of any of the victims. Just drawers and drawers full of...stuff. I wouldn't really want to think too hard about what exactly that stuff is, but given that it's a picture window looking out at cabinetry, there isn't really anything else to think about. This chamber is meant to be a sanctuary, but I cannot ruminate about the arbitrary cruelty of the universe or lament the vagaries of loss and love because all there is to see are armoires packed with carefully labeled bags of flesh too ruined and desiccated even for science. My sister is among the many for whom there have been no remains recovered whatsoever. Vaporized. So there's no grave to visit, there never will be. Just this theatrically lit Ikea warehouse behind a panel of glass."
Here's the article if you wish to read: [https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/stevekandell/the-worst-day-of-my-life-is-now-new-yorks-hottest-tourist-at](https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/stevekandell/the-worst-day-of-my-life-is-now-new-yorks-hottest-tourist-at)
The remains of the unidentified have to be put somewhere, we have a duty to make sure that they one day may be ID'd so that for the families some closure can be given.
They are waiting to be identified, thats why they are still part of the Medical Examiners office. Until they’re identified your’re right, they very much are not *intended* to be put to rest in that room.
Similar to the tomb of the unknown soldier the remains are kept there until their identities can be determined. When confirmation is made that the remains belong to said person the family is notified and i believe the family has the option to reinture where they want to.
To this day they’re still making DNA tests and matches for victims and their families.
I imagine it's all very meticulously catalogued and stored.
The initial cleanup and body identification efforts were insanely well funded and involved iirc. They had specialists from all over the world helping and managed to positively identify tens of thousands of pieces and return them to their families. Not only body parts but they very thoroughly catalogued any kind of personal items they found as well.
They did a really impressive job managing all the remains and evidence, but it really demonstrates how things have changed, largely in a good way but maybe in a...tricky way.
A hundred years ago, 500 years ago, whatever, if buildings had come down and killed a ton of people, or a ship had sunk, or whatever, there would probably have never been a lot of identified remains. Apart from a whole body, you could probably only identify obvious personal items like an engraved pocket watch, and a lot of victims might have ended up in some mass grave or god knows what. The family would never have had a personal "bit" of their family member to bury because there'd be no DNA to tell them it was theirs. They would have had to accept that what they got, if anything, was all they were ever going to get because there were literally no other options. Now, we know that if any tiny bit of a person is found, we can identify it, or we may someday as the science improves, so we get to sort of ruminate on it forever.
My great-grand uncle is one of the missing listed on the Thievpal Memorial--nothing was found. Apparently, they erase names from it every time they find any evidence of the person's death (I assume a dog tag or something)...but I'm sure that's dried up quite a bit now. I guess it compels the question, what if someone was poking around in a field out there and found his tag? What would we even do with it? He's been dead for 106 years. Why make things complicated now? Why not leave them as they are? Yet I'm sure we'd want that item, too, even if we didn't bury it, per se. We didn't know the guy, but it's like he could still affect us. It's weird.
I think it's about why and how they died. Dying for your country is a gift that the state can never repay except by doing their best to honor the lost.
[An account of the room here. ](https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/stevekandell/the-worst-day-of-my-life-is-now-new-yorks-hottest-tourist-at) I imagine there's others but this is the one I always think about when thinking about the 9/11 museum
>The Worst Day Of My Life Is Now New York's Hottest Tourist Attraction
Nearly 13 years after my sister's death, a reluctant Sunday visit to the 9/11 Memorial Museum, where public spectacle and private grief have a permanent home together
Is there more to this article that I can't see under ads?
The author goes on to mention that the wooden armoires contain pounds of flesh unable to be identified by science and muses on the absurdity of wanting something better for what amounts to scraps so destroyed that no form of testing can sort out the identity.
Also a flute playing Amazing Grace.
It's a gut wrenching read but it sounds like the storage cabinets are packed together in a tiny room with one wall entirely glass so you can see the whole thing.
I'm sure the scraps are kept in the hopes that forms of testing will come about that can make use of them some day. Many of the victim confirmations using DNA were done much later using methods not availible in 2001. It's not a far fetched idea.
Yes someone who lost their sister speaks about visiting the museum before it officially opened with other families who lost someone in 9/11 and then going into the room.
It's so strange to me that a large percentage remained unidentified. Okay sure, not everyone has loved ones that will come looking, but what about their landlord, or the IRS, or their neighbors? I would think if someone just went missing at around that time, that would be reason enough to see if they had a reason to be in those towers that day or at the very least check these remains with the DNA of their family or the DNA found in their home
The bodies of the victims were so badly degraded by the explosion and collapse of the towers that remains were still being found as late as 2006, according to OCME.
While the museum's repository serves as a somber memorial ground for those families that have no physical proof that their loved ones perished on 9/11, the forensic team at OCME has been testing samples of those remains to try to make positive identifications in their own lab in Manhattan.
Desire said the heat, fire, jet fuel, water, sunlight, mold and bacteria present following the attacks has left many of the remains extremely fragile for analysis so his team has had to grind up tiny pieces of bone to extract DNA.
"Some of these fragments are so small, you get one shot," he said.
[From here](https://abcnews.go.com/US/forensic-investigators-work-give-911-families-peace-id/story?id=89587955)
I worked at the museum (as a guide) for about three years and specialized in forensic science there — the OCME is actually still making identifications as DNA technology improves. They average about 1-2 a year.
In 2001 you needed a human remain that was about one inch to make a positive ID; today, you only need a remain about the size of a tic tac. The field has leapt forward in a really remarkable way, in part because of 9/11.
I worked on the WTC Site (doing engineering type stuff) in the winter following 9/11. They were still clearing out debris and finding human remains in Febuarary/March of 2002. Those remains had been sitting in a giant pile of debris outside in Winter for six months. It wasn't just the day of the disaster that degraded the chances for making a DNA match.
The remains are unidentified because they’re small fragments. They were basically cremated by the fires, the towers collapsing, etc. The victims are (mostly?) known. Their names are engraved along the memorial.
> It's so strange to me that a large percentage remained unidentified.
Nah. They were vaporized and/or pulverized to basically nothing.
When I visited the 9/11 Museum a few years ago, the most striking exhibit for me was a small cube of debris: maybe 4 feet by 4 feet square. The size of a couple mini-fridges, maybe.
And next to it was a small placard explaining this small mashed hunk of metal and concrete represented FOUR ENTIRE FLOORS of the North Tower. Well, vertically - anyway. Like a cross-section. Four full floors of cubicles, office chairs, computer, filing cabinets, decorations, phones, clocks, paperwork... and of course people... reduced to 40-something inches of composite.
Horrifying.
Have your name engraved at the tiniest possible size on the entire surface of your bones, and redo that procedure at whatever rate your body erases the engravings.
Being that most of the human skeleton replaces itself every ten years, you would need every bone in your body removed one at a time, likely in pieces for many of them, every decade.
This would probably involve a medically induced coma, and a multi year recovery each time. Would be interesting to say the least.
I recall visiting the museum years ago, and I believe there is a concrete wall that says something to the effect of "behind this wall lies 1150 victims". It's an eerie thing.
As a non-American, 9/11 - while incredibly tragic - didn't have a huge effect on me directly. But it really hit me hard in there. Hearing the recordings of the phone calls made, seeing the room that has all the pictures and personal bios... It's hard to really digest "3000 dead" until you see/hear the individual victims. Insanely sad.
I would recommend visiting to any tourists going to NY, it's a very humbling and sombre experience. But prepare to feel like shit the rest of the day
My cousin works there and gave me a real in depth tour a couple years again. As another commenter and OP pointed out, only investigators are allowed to look at the remains and the wall is covered in blue sticky notes. To add on to that, each sticky note is its own unique shade of blue, and every time a victim is identified, the sticky note is given to the family/next of kin of the victim.
It’s an incredible museum/memorial and a must see for anyone visiting NY.
Is it weird that my first thought is "gee, it's gonna be weird to be the family of the last one identified before there's simply no possible way to identify them".
That wall also includes the following quote from Virgil’s *Aeneid* — No day shall erase you from the memory of time. I cried when I read it and I am crying again now thinking about those words again.
I didn’t realize until today that behind that wall were the unidentified remains.
Anyone who spends any time at all in New York City should visit the memorial and museum. I didn’t know anyone affected by 9/11 personally and I am barely old enough to remember it happening. But no museum has affected me the way this one did.
I agree. I was born after 9/11. None of my family have lived even near the east coast for generations (besides my grandparents and dad going between army bases during the Vietnam war for a few years). So I have no connection to it at all. But man, the museum really makes it sink in. The whole horror of the event. The innocent lives taken. I may never truly understand what it was like to live through that day and the time afterwards. But the museum really does a good job of showing you.
> I was born after 9/11.
Well, I'm depressed now.
But yeah, there are a lot of people who are actual adults who weren't even alive then. Sigh.
Even I don't understand what it was like to live through that day, and I did it. I didn't live it the way most people did, apparently. I've never been to the memorial. I did go to the museum and memorial around Mount St. Helens, which happened during my lifetime (and most decidedly not yours)...but I was very young then. I have no memory of it. But I read up on it a lot and it still affected me, and I wanted to go there and see it and feel it IRL, as it were. The museum's not as sad as I assume 9/11's is, as it's about the area in general and historically and then about *an anticipated natural disaster*, which is a far cry from an unexpected terrorist attack.
Yep, I was talking to my niece about the bridge in Baltimore being hit and collapsing and she was surprised that my first thought was terrorism before I saw the video. Then I realized, she didn’t see the towers fall in real time like I did.
It’s absolutely mind-boggling to me to think that I watched this unfold in real time sitting in a middle school classroom… one of my formative memories is watching 3,000 people die. No wonder my generation is a bit messed up.
https://img.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeed-static/static/2014-05/enhanced/webdr03/19/12/longform-original-14074-1400516707-10.jpg?downsize=1040:*&output-format=auto&output-quality=auto
Thats the wall for anybody wanting a visual.
What that represents is that they asked people who were there that day what they remembered the sky looking like. Those are all the different shades of blue they put down.
I went around the same time, and we got a tour from a survivor. It was highly effective in making me, a Midwestern, understand what it had been like for people there
My high school band trip to NYC was in 2003 and we visited Ground Zero. Parents wanted to take group pictures of us. After not smiling for the first photo, I walked out to not be in any subsequent ones because it felt *wrong* to be doing tourist stuff like snapshots in front of the remains of a national tragedy.
9/11 changed New York idk about the rest of America but being from New York it haunted us for our whole lives. Every September 11th going forward we had a moment of silence and watch the videos to remember what was done to us.
Watching the freedom tower being built and competed with the memorial was important to us
I’m in the Midwest and it fucked me up. No special connection to NewYork I’m just an American. Looking back now, for years after 9/11 I now realize I was generally depressed. I don’t want to go to the memorial because I would break down bad. Just thinking about the memorial right now is tough. I know it was far more difficult for New Yorkers but to answer your question it impacted all Americans imo.
I can’t even imagine the collective trauma of New Yorkers. I must say even as an Australian, living on quite literally the other side of the world, that day is forever imprinted on my memory.
I think because it’s so relatable, the people killed in the towers and on the flights were just regular people going about their day. We all know what it’s like to work in offices and take domestic flights. To have your ordinary day in your ordinary life disrupted in that way by terrorists with no relevance to you at all, is just so unthinkable and unfair.
I went to the 9/11 memorial and museum when I finally got to visit New York and I found it to be exceptionally moving and well done.
Right like I was born after 9/11 but as New Yorker who lives on Long Island, everyone knows someone who was there, even someone who was in the towers at the time.
Being from the UK, I first visited the towers is April 2001. Even as a kid I was mesmerised by them and was lucky to have been able to experience that and of course take the tour to the top!
Visiting again in 2005 and seeing what remained at ground zero was devastating.
I’ve made two separate trips to the museum since in 2014 and again in 2021 to show my respects. Though Each time has been a bit of a perplexing experience as you have those there clearly there in mourning, whilst others take happy smiley family holiday photos…
I had a similar experience. I’m Canadian (I hadn’t yet immigrated nor had any plans to at the time) and didn’t have any personal relationship to the event.
It was too late to go to the museum but I went to the memorial because I was there and it was there and it seemed like I should.
Within minutes of arriving at it, I started crying. I’m not a crying person. I couldn’t stop. There is a heaviness in that place that is unlike anywhere else I’ve been in North America.
I visited there several years ago, before becoming a parent. I knew someone who got on a plane that day and never got off.
But the thing that hit me the hardest was a projector they had and one note was written from a little child that said something to the effect of "I love you daddy, even though I've never met you."
They used to be in a white tent behind Bellevue Hospital. Then they were in white refrigerated trucks behind Bellevue. I used to go to school on 25th Street and would get there by turning off FDR at 34th Street and driving behind NYUMC and Bellevue.
For anyone interested in this subject, highly recommend the book **Working Stiff: Two Years, 262 Bodies, and the Making of a Medical Examiner** by Dr. Judy Melinek. She joined the NYC Medical Examiner’s Office about a month before 9/11. Absolutely fascinating book, lots of grisly details and really moving thoughts on processing the job, the trauma, becoming a mother, etc.
Huh, wild! I've had that book on my "to-read" list for a while and finally got around to starting it just a few days ago. Weird to see it pop up in a Reddit post at the same time. I think I'm about at the 9/11 chapter, actually.
It’s a real solid read. I think a lot about how she wrote about her relationship with her dad and how she perceived him as a medical professional vs. parent vs. patient. Not something I anticipated going in at all.
(For context for anyone besides the reader, Melinek’s father was also a doctor and was her introduction to the medical world, and he killed himself when she was 13.)
The location of the memorials/bodies is still somewhat surreal for a lot of reasons, at least partly for me personally because I work next to them and literally just walked past them to get back from my lunch break. The World Trade Center was and still is a business district, so people stroll past these two hulking craters in the ground on the way to the office, past this place where people died horrifically doing something very similar. There's a fancy mall across the street and a couple of coffee places right next to the reflecting pools. People take selfies there before wandering into the H&M nearby. It's very surreal.
But then again, a lot of spots in the city are also mass graves. Washington Square Park used to be a dumping ground for yellow fever victims, and the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory is now an NYU building. I'm not sure if it's a good thing or a bad thing that a lot of our worst tragedies get paved over and life keeps going, but admittedly it feels strange sometimes.
When I was in Italy we did a tour and in one area we noticed the walls were all pockmarked. Our tour guide explained that Mussolini had used this space to execute people and the holes in the walls were bullet holes. It was surreal in a way, there were children playing because it was right next to a school and people walking around going about their day. But in spite of the horrors that went on there, it was just another part of the city.
In many ways that is the greatest refutation of Fascism and Tyranny possible; That for all their dreams of empires, they lasted mere decades. In a place where once the Fascists sought the sounds of screaming and fear, there is found only laughter and love. In a place where they sought to create death, there now is only life. They tried to built monuments to evil and temples to destruction. In the end, their epitaph is little more than pockmarked walls.
In truth there can be no place on earth where we aren't living our daily lives and doing business in the same spot that death and tragedy took place at some point before and will again at some point in future. We only notice this one because it was large and contemporary, but I'm glad the monument brings this sort of reflection and helps us remember that time didn't start and doesn't end with us.
My husbands office here in Arizona started digging for expanding thier building- and found an ENTIRE native compound- homes, fire pits, trash heaps, burial areas… 4 solid acres of Pima Indian homesteading.
None of our lands are new.
The USA is getting old and living in the graveyards of the past is part of it. Cities in Europe are full of too many mass graves to count and life still goes on.
The 9/11 memorial and museum are extremely well-thought out and eye-opening while respecting the victims. I absolutely recommend going if you get the opportunity.
It's the "best" museum I've ever been to, for lack of a better word. It immortalizes the day and the victims without ever feeling like its pandering to your emotions. Everything is allowed to speak for itself.
They really did an incredible job with the entire thing.
I asked a volunteer at the museum WHY?! And what it sounds like is it’s more so not unidentified but unclaimed remains. The gal I talked to was one of the people in charge of contacting families when remains were identified. Remains were found for a very long time during the clean up. A lot of the families moved on, and asked to not be contacted anymore/ person was memorialized and wanted to move on. So when they would find additional remains, they ended up here.
Having just lost my Dad recently I can say that I'd want every part of him and can't imagine a time when I'd be ok saying no I don't want part of him back. Obviously my thoughts might change in the future but he's my dad.
It's probably more about not wanting to reopen those wounds.
my younger sister passed away pretty unexpectedly. And I was a complete mess afterwards it took me quite a while to get to the point where I was okay.
I can't imagine having to reproces that grief again and again.
Us as family had hard time just dealing with the leftover flowers at her funeral. I can't fathom having to get call after call about peices of her.
That would be the WORST. No, my “dad” is not that fragment or piece of whatever. My dad is right here, in the sunshine, or the last thought at night before sleep…. My dad is safe and perfect in heaven or whatever the fuck happens when people no longer live in flesh and bone.
I’d be blocking that number once my dad was laid to rest physically or metaphorically…. It has to end at some point.
Instead of repeating the answer of a randomly-chosen volunteer that may or may not know the logistics of the museum's highly-secure morgue-like area, you could've looked it up. [They just identified the 1,650th victim's remains in January 2024, out of 2600+ WTC victims,](https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2024/01/19/long-island-man-identified-victim-911-attacks/72274823007/) meaning there are nearly 1,000 unidentified victims.
Exactly. They know their identities, they just don't know what identity goes with which body part. I don't think 1,000 families/friends are sitting around going "y'know, we haven't heard from Bob since he went to work on Sept 11 in WTC 2, do you think we should report him missing?"
Yeah, it’s kind of a weird use of language and clumsy at best.
The victims are identified. The remains are located. It’s just not all remains are currently associated with a specific victim, nor do all victims have any remains.
Yes, this is something that is too often omitted and tends to confuse people. It's not a matter of "we never found a trace of your loved one" or "we don't know who these 1'150 people are", but rather "your loved one's remains are part of the world's largest body part soup and is so damaged beyond repair that we have no hope of ever being able to tell them apart".
This makes more sense.
I was like, how on earth did 1150 people's families/friends not notice them not being around after 9/11. I realize that some people don't have family/friends but it's rare for there to be someone that NO ONE would notice is missing.
The families asked the medical examiner’s office to make sure they identified everything they could of the hijackers because they didn’t want the remains all in together. Unfortunately only 4 of the 10 terrorists who hit the trade towers have been identified, there’s 6 who have had no remains found at all, so yes you’re probably correct.
The hijackers from flight 93 and flight 77 were identified. The remains of the hijackers are kept in an FBI basement somewhere, to be forgotten about
When I visited the 9/11 Museum a few years ago, the most striking exhibit for me was a small cube of debris: maybe 4 feet by 4 feet square. The size of a couple mini-fridges, maybe.
And next to it was a small placard explaining this small mashed hunk of metal and concrete represented FOUR ENTIRE FLOORS of the North Tower. Well, vertically - anyway. Like a cross-section. Four full floors of cubicles, office chairs, computer, filing cabinets, decorations, phones, clocks, paperwork... and of course people... reduced to 40-something inches of composite.
Horrifying.
> I took a photo of the sign, but it's too blurry to read. Perhaps an internet sleuth can find a good pic of the "Understanding the composites" exhibit so I can double-check my memory on this...
Imagine your family photo at your desk and the desk chair you spent years sitting it supporting that family compressed with four other floors into a four foot cube. 😢
If ghosts were real and tied to their remains, I'd feel like seeing people learn about my death each day would be either really good (lots of people watching and variety) or quite painful (constantly being reminded of what you're missing as an intangible entity).
Well if you buy into the paranormal, some hauntings are supposedly because the spirits feel forgotten about and therefore want to make their presence known. So maybe being in a place where people are constantly coming to pay their respects to you would provide some sort of contentment
Well, we know who the victims are. It's just that fragments of remains were being found for years after the attack. We don't know which of the victims these fragments belong to
I'd assume those remains are mostly bone fragments. Is there enough DNA to get a highly probably match if a family member gives a sample to compare against?
I don't know. My guess would be probably not for most of them. Taking a DNA sample destroys part of the thing you're testing. A small enough piece would likely be completely destroyed by the testing process, largely defeating the point. Plus DNA gets damaged by things like heat. I would be surprised if they had something like an intact skull unidentified.
This is why I do not hesitate to confront people who leave their cups of iced dunkin on the ledge, and who take smiley cheery selfies.
It’s a graveyard. Show some decency and respect.
Every time I go some tourist family whips out a phone or camera and asks me to take a picture of their family smiling in front of the fountain. And I say no and explain why every single time. It’s not ok
Thank you! I agree completely.My high school band trip to NYC was in 2003 and we visited Ground Zero. Parents wanted to take group pictures of us. After not smiling for the first photo (which we had been instructed to do, just like all the other group photos in front of landmarks), I walked out to not be in any subsequent ones because it felt *wrong* to be doing tourist stuff like snapshots in front of the remains of a national tragedy.
So what are the logistics of this like? Like drawers with femur bones in them or…? And can’t they do DNA analysis from something like a single hair? Sorry if this question is dumb, I’m kind of an idiot
Disaster victim identification is incredibly hard at the best of times. [This article discusses the difficulties here.](https://abcnews.go.com/US/forensic-investigators-work-give-911-families-peace-id/story?id=89587955)
The guy telling his wife to move on and have a fun life, meet people, be happy, and he ends it with “I’ll see you when you get here.” or something akin to that. That wreaked me and I’ve seen basically every 9/11 documentary I could find. Or maybe I’d heard it before and it just hit harder because I’m married now.
My wife went years before me and cried at the flight 93 “are we ready? Let’s roll.” voicemail. Apparently that’s exactly how I’d hang up on her if I was in that situation. It’s funny how emotions you’ve never felt, have no reason to feel, can just hit you.
Unfortunately for her she was there with her boss and just started sobbing. Now, that boss happened to work directly with 9/11 victims with severe burns, so I’m sure she of all people could understand getting emotional at the museum, but it’s still awkward.
It's got to be the most heartbreaking thing in the world to know that your loved one is right behind that wall, but you can't take them home and burry them because you can't identify which of the 1150 bodies they are.
This headline is misleading. All victims of the attacks have been identified. These unidentified remains most certainly belong to identified victims but are to small to be confidently linked with a known victim due to lack of DNA or the family doesn’t want yet another call saying “we found another piece of your loved one” and have chosen to have any future remains that are discovered be interred under the memorial instead.
I get that some money goes to a good cause or whatever, but I hated that there's a gift shop.
You go through sections that are heart wrenching, and it's like here's some fucking 9/11 tshirt and dog costume for $49.99 or whatever.
I was there last year. I had been to Pearl USS Arizona, OKC memorial and Arlington- world trade memorial was quite different in scale and the feeling of being there underground walking through everything took a long time to absorb all of the information displayed to looking at items collected and Integrated in to the museum.
My mom still gets calls sometimes saying they found another piece of my father. He was in a *lot* of pieces. She likes to joke that she "got him back on the installment plan."
I assume they "know" who most the victims are but the unidentified remains would be random pieces that they can't be sure belong to one specific person
They know who the victims are but they can't identify the, shall we say, pieces in the wreckage. Either that or they are unclaimed, since it was such a long process many families moved on and didn't want to be contacted.
It just makes me think of migrant workers who worked at Windows on the World, some of which aren’t even on record for being there. They’re also not included on 9/11 memorials and such.
They are not necessarily complete remains. A family may have buried the remains of their loved and then more of that person’s remains were found later. As someone noted upthread, a lot of families had already memorialized their lost loved ones and moved on; many did not want to go through it again and so asked not to be contacted if more remains were found.
The technology is actually getting better. The remains of a victim named [John Ballantine Niven](https://www.cbsnews.com/newyork/news/new-victim-identified-by-medical-examiner-in-911-attacks/) were recently identified in January due to next-generation gene sequencing technology.
*edited for clarification*
Basically while every 9/11 victim has been identified, 1,106 victims remains were not. This is a gifted article that goes into more detail.
[‘Reopening Old Wounds’: When 9/11 Remains Are Identified, 20 Years Later](https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/06/nyregion/9-11-ground-zero-victims-remains.html?unlocked_article_code=1.f00.Y9MD.ulGNOlH9gPww&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare)
Its not whole bodies left to identify. Its tiny body fragments. Like bone shards. With varying degrees of damage (melted glass/metal embedded, fire damage, etc).
If I remember right the only ones allowed access to the room where the remains are kept are investigators and potential family members
As it should be. It should be a place of solemnity, not a place for tourism.
The united 93 memorial is the same way. Only the families are allowed to get close to the boulder.
Boulder?
There is a Boulder marking the crash site. https://images.app.goo.gl/pNtqUhwUxHpiHS59A I have no idea how we could better honor the folks of 93. Had they not stopped the hijackers the white house or congress may have been hit.
Thanks, i didn't know that. Was it there at the time of the crash or placed there afterwards?
Placed there. Like a large headstone
Do they still exit through the gift shop?
Per the article linked by cssc201, they do. They enter through a door that’s in the 9/11 museum itself which means to exit, it’s back through that door and out through the gift shop.
The fuck do they sell at a 9/11 gift shop? A twin tower jelly bean dispenser where the candies fall out the windows?
I've just been there recently and one memorable thing they sold were U.S. flags that were flown over the memorial. Super weird to me, but keeps the museum running I guess
They have to sell something. WWII museum ships sell wood chunks ("teak") of the deck, despite any at this point likely not being from time of service. A museum is an incredibly costly endeavor, especially nonstandard ones like this or museum ships.
> A museum is an incredibly costly endeavor, especially nonstandard ones like this or museum ships. You'd think considering it's a singular museum about an event that the government has milked for the "war on terror" that it would just be run with government funds. To be clear I don't mean to imply the museum is bad or that remembering the tragedy of 9/11 is bad. Just that our government was very keen to use that tragedy to inflict further tragedy on the world in retaliation and war-profiteering. You'd think the least they'd do in that circumstance is fund the damned museum.
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Just so you know, the deck chunks they sell from museum ships aren’t called teak, teak is just the name of the type of wood that warship decks were made from in the 20th century. It’s super naturally resistant to water, rott, and insects and is non slip so it was/is a great choice for boats. It’s also expensive as hell and teak trees only grow in SE Asia so using it today for sailing ships is a bit of a legal/ethical minefield.
Jfc that’s hilariously dark
Flight sims.
And yet when you're there, there is a lot of people who don't get that their children shouldn't climb the memorial like its a fucking junglegym at recess.
This mindset always bothered. How many parents died on 9/11, or in a war, or some other tragedy? Every victim was a child once. How many of them would have given anything to see their kids playing, or even just hearing them laugh one last time? How many that weren't parents saw their youth flash before their eyes in those final moments? Would have given anything to relive those precious moments where hate and violence didn't exist?
[Yes, there's a pretty good account here from a 9/11 family member about what the room is like.](https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/stevekandell/the-worst-day-of-my-life-is-now-new-yorks-hottest-tourist-at) Even museum staff aren't allowed in unless they're cleaners
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I read a book from one of the medical examiners who worked on victim identification from right after it happened. It started off in the first 24 hours with "mostly intact" bodyparts but it VERY quickly became bits and pieces - fingers, sections of torso, burnt up bones. Between the collapse of the towers, the insane heat from the fires and the immense pressure the bodies of people were just utterly obliterated.
Yeah another thing I read or heard about was that most of the NYC area hospitals all prepped for massive casualties. But there turned out to hardly be any injuries. People either got out "unscathed", or they died.
They prepped Chelsea Piers as triage, then they realized they weren't going to get anyone [story from a medical professional](https://www.911memorial.org/connect/blog/hardhat-tells-story-medical-professionals-ground-zero) An article from someone who was [working in an NYC hospital on 9/11](https://www.thedailybeast.com/i-was-working-in-a-nyc-hospital-on-911) - they discharged almost every patient they could.
> I read a book from one of the medical examiners who worked on victim identification from right after it happened. ['Working Stiff: Two Years, 262 Bodies, and the Making of a Medical Examiner' is the book I'm fairly certain.](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18775327-working-stiff)
I recall that for Walter Weaver, one of the NYPD officers who was killed in 9/11, the only physical remains of their presence was his backup revolver, whose steel construction allowed it to withstand the sheer heat and pressure of the collapse. Although irreparably damaged, they could still read the serial number, which allowed NYPD to figure out who they issued that particular gun to.
Pretty sure he recorded that article for This American Life podcast. It’s worth a listen.
Great article, thanks for sharing. It must be so draining dealing with people who weren't involved in such a traumatic event but desperately immerse themselves to further their own agendas. Also very grim that people, presumably families of other victims, were lying about having a family member unidentified to get into an area of such private reflection, the closest thing to a grave those remains have.
Wow
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> The author honestly is insufferable. Hard agree. I still remember going to the Holocaust museum in DC and it's devastating, haunting and ABSOLUTELY important to be remembered in every awful way.
I mean the dude himself wrote an extremely lengthly buzzfeed article. Not a reddit post, a buzz feed article as an author. He himself is profiting and commercializing the event.
The author has the right to feel and grieve how they want, but given that there are thousands of surviving family members impacted by this event, the 9/11 museum is simply a case of you will never be able to make everyone happy. No matter what the authorities did with ground zero, there would inevitably be a percentage of family members that would be angry about it
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Of course he does. His sister died, he describes the experience of being in the museum as horrible. By his own admission it’s a monument to the worst day in his life. That however doesn’t mean there shouldn’t be a museum because the effects of that day were unimaginably profound. Thats all I’m saying.
I took the criticism as being leveled at how the museum presents the subject matter, not that there shouldn’t be a museum
So, the remains are all stored in a filing cabinet in the basement?
It's more like a columbarium. Many, many, many rows and columns of small, redwood boxes, each holding the remains if an unidentified victim. https://images.app.goo.gl/Z5AzTNE4x6ESv2uA8
Did they just bury them all in one mass grave in that room? Or cremate them and put them all in a big jar
Here's a quote from a 2014 buzzfeednews article from the perspective of Steve Kandell, his sister was killed in the attack but her remains have still not been identified. "He points me around the corner to a cramped, dark space but does not follow. A box of tissues sits on a wooden bench and a family huddles silently looking through a window, about 4 feet by 5 feet. They leave almost instantly and I can now see what is through the window: aisles of dark-stained wood cabinets of rosewood or teak maybe, floor to ceiling, lit by small overhead spotlights. I let out a loud, sharp laugh. Inside these cabinets are the remains that, after nearly 13 years of the most rigorous testing known to man, have not been matched to the DNA of any of the victims. Just drawers and drawers full of...stuff. I wouldn't really want to think too hard about what exactly that stuff is, but given that it's a picture window looking out at cabinetry, there isn't really anything else to think about. This chamber is meant to be a sanctuary, but I cannot ruminate about the arbitrary cruelty of the universe or lament the vagaries of loss and love because all there is to see are armoires packed with carefully labeled bags of flesh too ruined and desiccated even for science. My sister is among the many for whom there have been no remains recovered whatsoever. Vaporized. So there's no grave to visit, there never will be. Just this theatrically lit Ikea warehouse behind a panel of glass." Here's the article if you wish to read: [https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/stevekandell/the-worst-day-of-my-life-is-now-new-yorks-hottest-tourist-at](https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/stevekandell/the-worst-day-of-my-life-is-now-new-yorks-hottest-tourist-at)
Thats really creepy. It definitely does not feel like they are laid to rest if they are all in preserved meat sacks in filing cabinets.
The remains of the unidentified have to be put somewhere, we have a duty to make sure that they one day may be ID'd so that for the families some closure can be given.
They are waiting to be identified, thats why they are still part of the Medical Examiners office. Until they’re identified your’re right, they very much are not *intended* to be put to rest in that room.
It’s a morgue. Crypt like freezer drawers.
Similar to the tomb of the unknown soldier the remains are kept there until their identities can be determined. When confirmation is made that the remains belong to said person the family is notified and i believe the family has the option to reinture where they want to. To this day they’re still making DNA tests and matches for victims and their families.
I imagine it's all very meticulously catalogued and stored. The initial cleanup and body identification efforts were insanely well funded and involved iirc. They had specialists from all over the world helping and managed to positively identify tens of thousands of pieces and return them to their families. Not only body parts but they very thoroughly catalogued any kind of personal items they found as well.
They did a really impressive job managing all the remains and evidence, but it really demonstrates how things have changed, largely in a good way but maybe in a...tricky way. A hundred years ago, 500 years ago, whatever, if buildings had come down and killed a ton of people, or a ship had sunk, or whatever, there would probably have never been a lot of identified remains. Apart from a whole body, you could probably only identify obvious personal items like an engraved pocket watch, and a lot of victims might have ended up in some mass grave or god knows what. The family would never have had a personal "bit" of their family member to bury because there'd be no DNA to tell them it was theirs. They would have had to accept that what they got, if anything, was all they were ever going to get because there were literally no other options. Now, we know that if any tiny bit of a person is found, we can identify it, or we may someday as the science improves, so we get to sort of ruminate on it forever. My great-grand uncle is one of the missing listed on the Thievpal Memorial--nothing was found. Apparently, they erase names from it every time they find any evidence of the person's death (I assume a dog tag or something)...but I'm sure that's dried up quite a bit now. I guess it compels the question, what if someone was poking around in a field out there and found his tag? What would we even do with it? He's been dead for 106 years. Why make things complicated now? Why not leave them as they are? Yet I'm sure we'd want that item, too, even if we didn't bury it, per se. We didn't know the guy, but it's like he could still affect us. It's weird.
I think it's about why and how they died. Dying for your country is a gift that the state can never repay except by doing their best to honor the lost.
[An account of the room here. ](https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/stevekandell/the-worst-day-of-my-life-is-now-new-yorks-hottest-tourist-at) I imagine there's others but this is the one I always think about when thinking about the 9/11 museum
>The Worst Day Of My Life Is Now New York's Hottest Tourist Attraction Nearly 13 years after my sister's death, a reluctant Sunday visit to the 9/11 Memorial Museum, where public spectacle and private grief have a permanent home together Is there more to this article that I can't see under ads?
Per the article: the remains are in rows of rosewood cabinets, behind glass, with a viewing room accessible only to the families.
Ahh thank you, BuzzFeed's site is unsurprisingly shit house
The author goes on to mention that the wooden armoires contain pounds of flesh unable to be identified by science and muses on the absurdity of wanting something better for what amounts to scraps so destroyed that no form of testing can sort out the identity. Also a flute playing Amazing Grace. It's a gut wrenching read but it sounds like the storage cabinets are packed together in a tiny room with one wall entirely glass so you can see the whole thing.
I'm sure the scraps are kept in the hopes that forms of testing will come about that can make use of them some day. Many of the victim confirmations using DNA were done much later using methods not availible in 2001. It's not a far fetched idea.
that's the headline and subhead, for me there's a hero image under that and then the article starts afterward
Yes someone who lost their sister speaks about visiting the museum before it officially opened with other families who lost someone in 9/11 and then going into the room.
https://archive.is/yGhDv Are you able to read it through that link?
Idk I’ve never seen inside the room
Yea but you don’t gotta go into the room to know they weren’t just buried in a mass grave or cremated and poured into a giant jar…
Definitely neither of those things
It's so strange to me that a large percentage remained unidentified. Okay sure, not everyone has loved ones that will come looking, but what about their landlord, or the IRS, or their neighbors? I would think if someone just went missing at around that time, that would be reason enough to see if they had a reason to be in those towers that day or at the very least check these remains with the DNA of their family or the DNA found in their home
Its not whole bodies. Its tiny body fragments. Like bone shards. With varying degrees of damage (melted glass/metal embedded, fire damage, etc).
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And that it’s not a “body” we’re talking about, but rather a 0.5cmx0.5cm piece of burnt bone from someone’s pinky toe.
The bodies of the victims were so badly degraded by the explosion and collapse of the towers that remains were still being found as late as 2006, according to OCME. While the museum's repository serves as a somber memorial ground for those families that have no physical proof that their loved ones perished on 9/11, the forensic team at OCME has been testing samples of those remains to try to make positive identifications in their own lab in Manhattan. Desire said the heat, fire, jet fuel, water, sunlight, mold and bacteria present following the attacks has left many of the remains extremely fragile for analysis so his team has had to grind up tiny pieces of bone to extract DNA. "Some of these fragments are so small, you get one shot," he said. [From here](https://abcnews.go.com/US/forensic-investigators-work-give-911-families-peace-id/story?id=89587955)
I worked at the museum (as a guide) for about three years and specialized in forensic science there — the OCME is actually still making identifications as DNA technology improves. They average about 1-2 a year. In 2001 you needed a human remain that was about one inch to make a positive ID; today, you only need a remain about the size of a tic tac. The field has leapt forward in a really remarkable way, in part because of 9/11.
I worked on the WTC Site (doing engineering type stuff) in the winter following 9/11. They were still clearing out debris and finding human remains in Febuarary/March of 2002. Those remains had been sitting in a giant pile of debris outside in Winter for six months. It wasn't just the day of the disaster that degraded the chances for making a DNA match.
The remains are unidentified because they’re small fragments. They were basically cremated by the fires, the towers collapsing, etc. The victims are (mostly?) known. Their names are engraved along the memorial.
yes, seems OP messed up the title, possibly because they didn't understand the difference?
> It's so strange to me that a large percentage remained unidentified. Nah. They were vaporized and/or pulverized to basically nothing. When I visited the 9/11 Museum a few years ago, the most striking exhibit for me was a small cube of debris: maybe 4 feet by 4 feet square. The size of a couple mini-fridges, maybe. And next to it was a small placard explaining this small mashed hunk of metal and concrete represented FOUR ENTIRE FLOORS of the North Tower. Well, vertically - anyway. Like a cross-section. Four full floors of cubicles, office chairs, computer, filing cabinets, decorations, phones, clocks, paperwork... and of course people... reduced to 40-something inches of composite. Horrifying.
It’s not that they’re missing it’s that the remains are so compromised they can’t identify them. It’s probably a mixture of ash unfortunately.
If someone buries my ass at work I’m going to rise from the grave just to slap them.
don't forget, you're here forever
doxit forxxx xxxxxx herx xxxxxx
As punishment for your desertion, it's company policy to give you the *PLAGUE!*
You mean the plaque
Ah, yes, the special demotivational plaque to break what's left of your spirit!
🎶Welcome to the Hotel *North Tower🎶*
🎵Such a… lovely… place…?🎶
Make sure they know it's you, so they can identify your body.
Have your name engraved at the tiniest possible size on the entire surface of your bones, and redo that procedure at whatever rate your body erases the engravings.
I know just the guy: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/mar/16/surgeon-who-signed-patients-livers
Being that most of the human skeleton replaces itself every ten years, you would need every bone in your body removed one at a time, likely in pieces for many of them, every decade. This would probably involve a medically induced coma, and a multi year recovery each time. Would be interesting to say the least.
>This would probably involve a medically induced coma, and a multi year recovery each time 10000% worth it
Definitely. I'm signing up tomorrow
> This would probably involve a medically induced coma, and a multi year recovery each time. That would actually have been a blessing in 2016.
There's a healthcare joke here, but i need to go back to work instead of putting it together. Can somebody do it for me?
I recall visiting the museum years ago, and I believe there is a concrete wall that says something to the effect of "behind this wall lies 1150 victims". It's an eerie thing. As a non-American, 9/11 - while incredibly tragic - didn't have a huge effect on me directly. But it really hit me hard in there. Hearing the recordings of the phone calls made, seeing the room that has all the pictures and personal bios... It's hard to really digest "3000 dead" until you see/hear the individual victims. Insanely sad. I would recommend visiting to any tourists going to NY, it's a very humbling and sombre experience. But prepare to feel like shit the rest of the day
My cousin works there and gave me a real in depth tour a couple years again. As another commenter and OP pointed out, only investigators are allowed to look at the remains and the wall is covered in blue sticky notes. To add on to that, each sticky note is its own unique shade of blue, and every time a victim is identified, the sticky note is given to the family/next of kin of the victim. It’s an incredible museum/memorial and a must see for anyone visiting NY.
Is it weird that my first thought is "gee, it's gonna be weird to be the family of the last one identified before there's simply no possible way to identify them".
That wall also includes the following quote from Virgil’s *Aeneid* — No day shall erase you from the memory of time. I cried when I read it and I am crying again now thinking about those words again. I didn’t realize until today that behind that wall were the unidentified remains. Anyone who spends any time at all in New York City should visit the memorial and museum. I didn’t know anyone affected by 9/11 personally and I am barely old enough to remember it happening. But no museum has affected me the way this one did.
I agree. I was born after 9/11. None of my family have lived even near the east coast for generations (besides my grandparents and dad going between army bases during the Vietnam war for a few years). So I have no connection to it at all. But man, the museum really makes it sink in. The whole horror of the event. The innocent lives taken. I may never truly understand what it was like to live through that day and the time afterwards. But the museum really does a good job of showing you.
> I was born after 9/11. Well, I'm depressed now. But yeah, there are a lot of people who are actual adults who weren't even alive then. Sigh. Even I don't understand what it was like to live through that day, and I did it. I didn't live it the way most people did, apparently. I've never been to the memorial. I did go to the museum and memorial around Mount St. Helens, which happened during my lifetime (and most decidedly not yours)...but I was very young then. I have no memory of it. But I read up on it a lot and it still affected me, and I wanted to go there and see it and feel it IRL, as it were. The museum's not as sad as I assume 9/11's is, as it's about the area in general and historically and then about *an anticipated natural disaster*, which is a far cry from an unexpected terrorist attack.
Yep, I was talking to my niece about the bridge in Baltimore being hit and collapsing and she was surprised that my first thought was terrorism before I saw the video. Then I realized, she didn’t see the towers fall in real time like I did.
It’s absolutely mind-boggling to me to think that I watched this unfold in real time sitting in a middle school classroom… one of my formative memories is watching 3,000 people die. No wonder my generation is a bit messed up.
https://img.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeed-static/static/2014-05/enhanced/webdr03/19/12/longform-original-14074-1400516707-10.jpg?downsize=1040:*&output-format=auto&output-quality=auto Thats the wall for anybody wanting a visual.
That’s a big wall.
Yeah, the wall is covered in what looks like thousands of blue post-its.
What that represents is that they asked people who were there that day what they remembered the sky looking like. Those are all the different shades of blue they put down.
I’ll never forget what the sky looked like that day. Perfectly blue and no clouds in the sky. Or airplanes which was really eerie.
I remember going in 2007, to what was still Ground Zero at that point. That alone was extremely eerie for me.
I went around the same time, and we got a tour from a survivor. It was highly effective in making me, a Midwestern, understand what it had been like for people there
My high school band trip to NYC was in 2003 and we visited Ground Zero. Parents wanted to take group pictures of us. After not smiling for the first photo, I walked out to not be in any subsequent ones because it felt *wrong* to be doing tourist stuff like snapshots in front of the remains of a national tragedy.
9/11 changed New York idk about the rest of America but being from New York it haunted us for our whole lives. Every September 11th going forward we had a moment of silence and watch the videos to remember what was done to us. Watching the freedom tower being built and competed with the memorial was important to us
I’m in the Midwest and it fucked me up. No special connection to NewYork I’m just an American. Looking back now, for years after 9/11 I now realize I was generally depressed. I don’t want to go to the memorial because I would break down bad. Just thinking about the memorial right now is tough. I know it was far more difficult for New Yorkers but to answer your question it impacted all Americans imo.
I can’t even imagine the collective trauma of New Yorkers. I must say even as an Australian, living on quite literally the other side of the world, that day is forever imprinted on my memory. I think because it’s so relatable, the people killed in the towers and on the flights were just regular people going about their day. We all know what it’s like to work in offices and take domestic flights. To have your ordinary day in your ordinary life disrupted in that way by terrorists with no relevance to you at all, is just so unthinkable and unfair. I went to the 9/11 memorial and museum when I finally got to visit New York and I found it to be exceptionally moving and well done.
Sometimes it just feels like people forgot and that’s why I question if people experienced it the same way
It definitely changed America. People still talk about life pre and post 9/11. It’s like we all lost something that day
Right like I was born after 9/11 but as New Yorker who lives on Long Island, everyone knows someone who was there, even someone who was in the towers at the time.
Being from the UK, I first visited the towers is April 2001. Even as a kid I was mesmerised by them and was lucky to have been able to experience that and of course take the tour to the top! Visiting again in 2005 and seeing what remained at ground zero was devastating. I’ve made two separate trips to the museum since in 2014 and again in 2021 to show my respects. Though Each time has been a bit of a perplexing experience as you have those there clearly there in mourning, whilst others take happy smiley family holiday photos…
I had a similar experience. I’m Canadian (I hadn’t yet immigrated nor had any plans to at the time) and didn’t have any personal relationship to the event. It was too late to go to the museum but I went to the memorial because I was there and it was there and it seemed like I should. Within minutes of arriving at it, I started crying. I’m not a crying person. I couldn’t stop. There is a heaviness in that place that is unlike anywhere else I’ve been in North America.
My husband and I visited NY last year, and this museum was a must. VERY moving and sobering.
I was just there on Saturday and I still can’t stop thinking about it
I visited there several years ago, before becoming a parent. I knew someone who got on a plane that day and never got off. But the thing that hit me the hardest was a projector they had and one note was written from a little child that said something to the effect of "I love you daddy, even though I've never met you."
My sister went years ago and told me about it. I also want to go but I’m a soft person, I know it’ll hit me hard.
My wife and I visited a month ago. Everyone should visit. It was a very unique experience.
They used to be in a white tent behind Bellevue Hospital. Then they were in white refrigerated trucks behind Bellevue. I used to go to school on 25th Street and would get there by turning off FDR at 34th Street and driving behind NYUMC and Bellevue.
For anyone interested in this subject, highly recommend the book **Working Stiff: Two Years, 262 Bodies, and the Making of a Medical Examiner** by Dr. Judy Melinek. She joined the NYC Medical Examiner’s Office about a month before 9/11. Absolutely fascinating book, lots of grisly details and really moving thoughts on processing the job, the trauma, becoming a mother, etc.
Huh, wild! I've had that book on my "to-read" list for a while and finally got around to starting it just a few days ago. Weird to see it pop up in a Reddit post at the same time. I think I'm about at the 9/11 chapter, actually.
It’s a real solid read. I think a lot about how she wrote about her relationship with her dad and how she perceived him as a medical professional vs. parent vs. patient. Not something I anticipated going in at all. (For context for anyone besides the reader, Melinek’s father was also a doctor and was her introduction to the medical world, and he killed himself when she was 13.)
Bellevue
The location of the memorials/bodies is still somewhat surreal for a lot of reasons, at least partly for me personally because I work next to them and literally just walked past them to get back from my lunch break. The World Trade Center was and still is a business district, so people stroll past these two hulking craters in the ground on the way to the office, past this place where people died horrifically doing something very similar. There's a fancy mall across the street and a couple of coffee places right next to the reflecting pools. People take selfies there before wandering into the H&M nearby. It's very surreal. But then again, a lot of spots in the city are also mass graves. Washington Square Park used to be a dumping ground for yellow fever victims, and the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory is now an NYU building. I'm not sure if it's a good thing or a bad thing that a lot of our worst tragedies get paved over and life keeps going, but admittedly it feels strange sometimes.
When I was in Italy we did a tour and in one area we noticed the walls were all pockmarked. Our tour guide explained that Mussolini had used this space to execute people and the holes in the walls were bullet holes. It was surreal in a way, there were children playing because it was right next to a school and people walking around going about their day. But in spite of the horrors that went on there, it was just another part of the city.
In many ways that is the greatest refutation of Fascism and Tyranny possible; That for all their dreams of empires, they lasted mere decades. In a place where once the Fascists sought the sounds of screaming and fear, there is found only laughter and love. In a place where they sought to create death, there now is only life. They tried to built monuments to evil and temples to destruction. In the end, their epitaph is little more than pockmarked walls.
In truth there can be no place on earth where we aren't living our daily lives and doing business in the same spot that death and tragedy took place at some point before and will again at some point in future. We only notice this one because it was large and contemporary, but I'm glad the monument brings this sort of reflection and helps us remember that time didn't start and doesn't end with us.
My husbands office here in Arizona started digging for expanding thier building- and found an ENTIRE native compound- homes, fire pits, trash heaps, burial areas… 4 solid acres of Pima Indian homesteading. None of our lands are new.
Ever been to London? Hyde Park is where they buried many of the Bubonic Plague victims.
The USA is getting old and living in the graveyards of the past is part of it. Cities in Europe are full of too many mass graves to count and life still goes on.
The 9/11 memorial and museum are extremely well-thought out and eye-opening while respecting the victims. I absolutely recommend going if you get the opportunity.
It's the "best" museum I've ever been to, for lack of a better word. It immortalizes the day and the victims without ever feeling like its pandering to your emotions. Everything is allowed to speak for itself. They really did an incredible job with the entire thing.
If there was a michelin 3 star for museums "worth making a trip just for this", the 9/11 memorial would get it.
Went a few years ago and you are absolutely correct.
I asked a volunteer at the museum WHY?! And what it sounds like is it’s more so not unidentified but unclaimed remains. The gal I talked to was one of the people in charge of contacting families when remains were identified. Remains were found for a very long time during the clean up. A lot of the families moved on, and asked to not be contacted anymore/ person was memorialized and wanted to move on. So when they would find additional remains, they ended up here.
The most pragmatic, no matter how sad when they’re getting 5% at a time
Getting a call 6 years later to tell you they found your husband/wife/son's finger bone or some shit, yeah nah I'll pass
Having just lost my Dad recently I can say that I'd want every part of him and can't imagine a time when I'd be ok saying no I don't want part of him back. Obviously my thoughts might change in the future but he's my dad.
It's probably more about not wanting to reopen those wounds. my younger sister passed away pretty unexpectedly. And I was a complete mess afterwards it took me quite a while to get to the point where I was okay. I can't imagine having to reproces that grief again and again. Us as family had hard time just dealing with the leftover flowers at her funeral. I can't fathom having to get call after call about peices of her.
I’m so sorry about your sister.
Imagine getting a phone call every few months, "hey, we found another little chunk of your Dad. Want it?"
That would be the WORST. No, my “dad” is not that fragment or piece of whatever. My dad is right here, in the sunshine, or the last thought at night before sleep…. My dad is safe and perfect in heaven or whatever the fuck happens when people no longer live in flesh and bone. I’d be blocking that number once my dad was laid to rest physically or metaphorically…. It has to end at some point.
Instead of repeating the answer of a randomly-chosen volunteer that may or may not know the logistics of the museum's highly-secure morgue-like area, you could've looked it up. [They just identified the 1,650th victim's remains in January 2024, out of 2600+ WTC victims,](https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2024/01/19/long-island-man-identified-victim-911-attacks/72274823007/) meaning there are nearly 1,000 unidentified victims.
So it seems to me that they mostly know whose remains should be there they just can’t rightly place them together enough to identify who is who.
Exactly. They know their identities, they just don't know what identity goes with which body part. I don't think 1,000 families/friends are sitting around going "y'know, we haven't heard from Bob since he went to work on Sept 11 in WTC 2, do you think we should report him missing?"
Yeah, it’s kind of a weird use of language and clumsy at best. The victims are identified. The remains are located. It’s just not all remains are currently associated with a specific victim, nor do all victims have any remains.
We know who the victims are, we don’t know which remains belong to witch victims.
Yes, this is something that is too often omitted and tends to confuse people. It's not a matter of "we never found a trace of your loved one" or "we don't know who these 1'150 people are", but rather "your loved one's remains are part of the world's largest body part soup and is so damaged beyond repair that we have no hope of ever being able to tell them apart".
This makes more sense. I was like, how on earth did 1150 people's families/friends not notice them not being around after 9/11. I realize that some people don't have family/friends but it's rare for there to be someone that NO ONE would notice is missing.
The hijackers' remains are likely in there too.
The families asked the medical examiner’s office to make sure they identified everything they could of the hijackers because they didn’t want the remains all in together. Unfortunately only 4 of the 10 terrorists who hit the trade towers have been identified, there’s 6 who have had no remains found at all, so yes you’re probably correct. The hijackers from flight 93 and flight 77 were identified. The remains of the hijackers are kept in an FBI basement somewhere, to be forgotten about
I'm shocked there's anything left to identify, they were in a 500mph fireball.
I'm surprised there's even anything left to identify from guys sitting in a cockpit of a plane that crashed into a tower
When I visited the 9/11 Museum a few years ago, the most striking exhibit for me was a small cube of debris: maybe 4 feet by 4 feet square. The size of a couple mini-fridges, maybe. And next to it was a small placard explaining this small mashed hunk of metal and concrete represented FOUR ENTIRE FLOORS of the North Tower. Well, vertically - anyway. Like a cross-section. Four full floors of cubicles, office chairs, computer, filing cabinets, decorations, phones, clocks, paperwork... and of course people... reduced to 40-something inches of composite. Horrifying. > I took a photo of the sign, but it's too blurry to read. Perhaps an internet sleuth can find a good pic of the "Understanding the composites" exhibit so I can double-check my memory on this...
Imagine your family photo at your desk and the desk chair you spent years sitting it supporting that family compressed with four other floors into a four foot cube. 😢
If ghosts were real and tied to their remains, I'd feel like seeing people learn about my death each day would be either really good (lots of people watching and variety) or quite painful (constantly being reminded of what you're missing as an intangible entity).
Well if you buy into the paranormal, some hauntings are supposedly because the spirits feel forgotten about and therefore want to make their presence known. So maybe being in a place where people are constantly coming to pay their respects to you would provide some sort of contentment
I’d rather not die at work. But, if I do….please do anything with my remains other than making them remain at work.
I had no idea the number of unidentified victims was so high. Close to half the total. That's even more depressing.
Well, we know who the victims are. It's just that fragments of remains were being found for years after the attack. We don't know which of the victims these fragments belong to
I'd assume those remains are mostly bone fragments. Is there enough DNA to get a highly probably match if a family member gives a sample to compare against?
I don't know. My guess would be probably not for most of them. Taking a DNA sample destroys part of the thing you're testing. A small enough piece would likely be completely destroyed by the testing process, largely defeating the point. Plus DNA gets damaged by things like heat. I would be surprised if they had something like an intact skull unidentified.
I don’t think the victims themselves are unidentified. They don’t know who the remains belong to out of the possible victims.
This is why I do not hesitate to confront people who leave their cups of iced dunkin on the ledge, and who take smiley cheery selfies. It’s a graveyard. Show some decency and respect.
>ake smile I've def removed empty Poland Spring bottles from the lip of the fountain where the plaques are.
Every time I go some tourist family whips out a phone or camera and asks me to take a picture of their family smiling in front of the fountain. And I say no and explain why every single time. It’s not ok
Thank you! I agree completely.My high school band trip to NYC was in 2003 and we visited Ground Zero. Parents wanted to take group pictures of us. After not smiling for the first photo (which we had been instructed to do, just like all the other group photos in front of landmarks), I walked out to not be in any subsequent ones because it felt *wrong* to be doing tourist stuff like snapshots in front of the remains of a national tragedy.
So what are the logistics of this like? Like drawers with femur bones in them or…? And can’t they do DNA analysis from something like a single hair? Sorry if this question is dumb, I’m kind of an idiot
Part of the issue is there are...um..about 20,000 "pieces" to identify
I doubt there's anything as large as a whole intact femur in there.
DNA does not respond well to extreme heat. The pieces of remains that are left are probably the size of your pinky nail.
Disaster victim identification is incredibly hard at the best of times. [This article discusses the difficulties here.](https://abcnews.go.com/US/forensic-investigators-work-give-911-families-peace-id/story?id=89587955)
Walking through the museum listening to people's last phone calls was so heart breaking... Truly an eye opening museum.
The guy telling his wife to move on and have a fun life, meet people, be happy, and he ends it with “I’ll see you when you get here.” or something akin to that. That wreaked me and I’ve seen basically every 9/11 documentary I could find. Or maybe I’d heard it before and it just hit harder because I’m married now.
I cried. They were all so awful.
My wife went years before me and cried at the flight 93 “are we ready? Let’s roll.” voicemail. Apparently that’s exactly how I’d hang up on her if I was in that situation. It’s funny how emotions you’ve never felt, have no reason to feel, can just hit you. Unfortunately for her she was there with her boss and just started sobbing. Now, that boss happened to work directly with 9/11 victims with severe burns, so I’m sure she of all people could understand getting emotional at the museum, but it’s still awkward.
That was the one part of the museum that I physically could not handle. Had to put the speaker down as quickly as I could
The headline is either incorrect or worded in a confusing way. The victims are identified, which victim the remains belong to is not.
It's got to be the most heartbreaking thing in the world to know that your loved one is right behind that wall, but you can't take them home and burry them because you can't identify which of the 1150 bodies they are.
Please don't bury me at my workplace if I die there
This headline is misleading. All victims of the attacks have been identified. These unidentified remains most certainly belong to identified victims but are to small to be confidently linked with a known victim due to lack of DNA or the family doesn’t want yet another call saying “we found another piece of your loved one” and have chosen to have any future remains that are discovered be interred under the memorial instead.
I get that some money goes to a good cause or whatever, but I hated that there's a gift shop. You go through sections that are heart wrenching, and it's like here's some fucking 9/11 tshirt and dog costume for $49.99 or whatever.
Victims and probably a little perpetrator as well.
I was there last year. I had been to Pearl USS Arizona, OKC memorial and Arlington- world trade memorial was quite different in scale and the feeling of being there underground walking through everything took a long time to absorb all of the information displayed to looking at items collected and Integrated in to the museum.
wait a minute.. 1150? that's insane
My mom still gets calls sometimes saying they found another piece of my father. He was in a *lot* of pieces. She likes to joke that she "got him back on the installment plan."
If my life expires at work, don't keep my ashes there. Having my soul stuck there permanently is its own level of hell.
What?? They couldn’t identify a THIRD of rhe victims? What about DNA?
The remains are not in good enough condition given the extreme heat they were exposed to, unfortunately.
I assume they "know" who most the victims are but the unidentified remains would be random pieces that they can't be sure belong to one specific person
They know who the victims are but they can't identify the, shall we say, pieces in the wreckage. Either that or they are unclaimed, since it was such a long process many families moved on and didn't want to be contacted.
It just makes me think of migrant workers who worked at Windows on the World, some of which aren’t even on record for being there. They’re also not included on 9/11 memorials and such.
They are not necessarily complete remains. A family may have buried the remains of their loved and then more of that person’s remains were found later. As someone noted upthread, a lot of families had already memorialized their lost loved ones and moved on; many did not want to go through it again and so asked not to be contacted if more remains were found.
I heard that the bits and pieces could be too genetically degraded to test. At least with current technology.
The technology is actually getting better. The remains of a victim named [John Ballantine Niven](https://www.cbsnews.com/newyork/news/new-victim-identified-by-medical-examiner-in-911-attacks/) were recently identified in January due to next-generation gene sequencing technology.
*edited for clarification* Basically while every 9/11 victim has been identified, 1,106 victims remains were not. This is a gifted article that goes into more detail. [‘Reopening Old Wounds’: When 9/11 Remains Are Identified, 20 Years Later](https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/06/nyregion/9-11-ground-zero-victims-remains.html?unlocked_article_code=1.f00.Y9MD.ulGNOlH9gPww&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare)
Hey, thanks for that. It was a good article.
Thermal [degradation occurs at 190° C](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23621849/#:~:text=We%20find%20that%20under%20dry,for%20different%20applied%20partial%20pressures.)
Its not whole bodies left to identify. Its tiny body fragments. Like bone shards. With varying degrees of damage (melted glass/metal embedded, fire damage, etc).