On 11 September 2001, 102 minutes passed between the first impact and the fall of the second tower. That day 2,977 people died in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania, and the Western world changed the way it thinks about security. Twelve stops between the bridge thousands crossed on foot to escape, the neighbourhood sealed inside the closed zone, the waterfront of the great boat evacuation, the tower that replaced the twins, the two pools bearing the victims' names, the underground museum, the tree that survived, the bronze sphere pulled from the rubble, the wall of the 343 firefighters, Calatrava's station and the chapel that became a refuge for the rescue workers. Approximate audio duration: 22 minutes.
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Nueva York: los 102 minutos del 11 de septiembre y el mundo que vino después
El 11 de septiembre de 2001, entre el primer impacto y la caída de la segunda torre pasaron 102 minutos. Ese día murieron 2.977 personas en Nueva York, Washington y Pensilvania, y el mundo occidental cambió su manera de pensar la seguridad. Doce paradas entre el puente por el que huyeron miles de personas, el barrio que quedó dentro de la zona cerrada, el muelle de la gran evacuación en barco, la torre que reemplazó a las gemelas, las dos piscinas con los nombres de las víctimas, el museo bajo tierra, el árbol que sobrevivió, la esfera de bronce rescatada de los escombros, el muro de los 343 bomberos, la estación de Calatrava y la capilla que se convirtió en refugio de los rescatistas. Duración aproximada de audio: 22 minutos.
Tour stops
12 stops · ~22 min of audio · 4.3 km on foot (~1 h 5 min walking) · about 1 h 30 min in total
You are standing on the wooden walkway of the Brooklyn Bridge. Look towards Manhattan, towards the southern tip of the island. The tallest tower you can see is One World Trade Center. Until 2001, two twin towers stood on that same skyline.
Tuesday, 11 September 2001 dawned under a perfectly clear sky. At 8:46 a.m., American Airlines Flight 11 flew into the North Tower. At 9:03, United Airlines Flight 175 struck the South Tower. Millions of people watched it happen live on television.
Both planes had taken off from Boston bound for Los Angeles, their tanks full of fuel. They had been hijacked…
2
Tribeca, the Neighbourhood Inside the Closed Zone
You are in Tribeca, at the corner of Chambers and Greenwich. The name is an acronym: the Triangle Below Canal Street. Look at the brick and cast-iron buildings. They were nineteenth-century warehouses, later turned into lofts.
From these streets the towers looked enormous, less than a kilometre to the south. When they fell, the cloud of dust and paper surged up the avenues and blanketed the whole neighbourhood.
For days the city sealed off lower Manhattan. First everything below 14th Street, then everything below Canal Street. Tribeca residents had to show identification to get back to their…
3
Battery Park City and the Evacuation by Water
You are by the North Cove marina in Battery Park City, facing the Hudson River. Across the water are the buildings of Jersey City, New Jersey. Behind you is the great glass pavilion of the Winter Garden.
This whole neighbourhood is land reclaimed from the river. When the foundations of the World Trade Center were dug in the late 1960s, part of the earth and rock removed was used to fill in the shoreline. In a sense, the towers and this neighbourhood were born together.
On 11 September, lower Manhattan was trapped. Bridges and tunnels closed, the subway stopped, the air thick with smoke. For …
4
The Tower That Replaced the Twins
You are at the corner of West Street and Vesey Street. Look up. That glass prism tapering towards the sky is One World Trade Center, the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere.
With its spire it stands 1,776 feet, about 541 metres. The number is deliberate: 1776 is the year of the United States Declaration of Independence. During construction it was called the Freedom Tower.
The original twin towers, designed by the architect Minoru Yamasaki, opened in 1973. They had 110 floors each. Briefly the tallest in the world, for nearly three decades they were the symbol of New York's financial p…
5
The North Pool, the Footprint of the First Tower
You are standing at the North Pool. Listen to the water. It falls down all four walls, about nine metres, and disappears into a central void whose bottom you cannot see. This square sits exactly where the North Tower stood.
At 8:46, Flight 11 struck it between the 93rd and 99th floors. No one above the impact zone got out: all three stairwells were destroyed.
The memorial is called Reflecting Absence. It was designed by the architect Michael Arad and the landscape architect Peter Walker, and it opened on 11 September 2011, the tenth anniversary. Each pool covers nearly an acre.
Look at the …
6
The Museum Beneath the Plaza
You are in front of the entrance pavilion of the National September 11 Memorial Museum. Look through the glass: inside rise two steel columns shaped like tridents. They were once part of the North Tower's facade.
The pavilion is only the doorway. The museum lies below, some twenty metres down, at the level of the towers' foundations. It opened to the public in May 2014.
Down there you can see the original retaining wall that kept the Hudson's water from flooding the basements. It withstood the collapse of the towers. Engineers feared it would give way, and its survival became a symbol for th…
7
The South Pool and the Names from Every Site
You are at the South Pool, on the site of the South Tower. It was the second to be hit and the first to fall.
At 9:03, Flight 175 struck it at an angle between the 77th and 85th floors. One stairwell remained partly passable, and a few people above the impact managed to get down it. They were very few.
Many who worked in this tower had already begun leaving after the first crash. Others heard over the loudspeakers that the building was safe and that they could return to their offices. At 9:59, just 56 minutes after the impact, the tower collapsed.
On these parapets are the names from the So…
8
The Tree That Survived
You are in front of a tree that stands apart from the rest. The whole plaza is planted with swamp white oaks, hundreds of them, nearly identical. This one is different: it is a Callery pear, and a low railing protects it.
In October 2001, workers found it in the rubble: a charred trunk about two and a half metres tall, its roots snapped, with a single living branch. It had stood in a plaza of the old complex, planted in the 1970s.
The city's parks department moved it to a nursery in Van Cortlandt Park, in the Bronx. They tended it there for nearly a decade. No one knew whether it would survi…
9
The Wounded Sphere and the Reborn Church
You are in Liberty Park, a garden raised above Liberty Street. In front of you is a large bronze sphere, dented and torn. Look closely at the wounds in the metal.
It was made by the German sculptor Fritz Koenig. From the early 1970s it stood at the centre of the plaza between the two towers, turning slowly above a fountain. Koenig conceived it as a symbol of world peace through trade.
When the towers fell, the sphere was buried in the rubble. It was pulled out damaged but whole. In March 2002 it was placed in Battery Park, at the southern tip of Manhattan, as the first temporary memorial. In…
10
The Wall of the 343 Firefighters
You are in front of the Liberty Street firehouse, home of Engine 10 and Ladder 10. New Yorkers call it Ten House. Look at the side wall: a long bronze relief, about seventeen metres in length.
This is the station closest to where the towers stood, directly across the street. Its firefighters were among the first to arrive that morning. The building was damaged and buried in debris. Several of its men died that morning.
The relief, dedicated in 2006, shows scenes from that day: firefighters climbing stairs, fire trucks, the burning towers. Beneath them are the names of the 343 city firefighte…
11
The Oculus and the Underground That Moved Again
You are in front of the Oculus. Look at those white steel ribs opening upwards like wings. This is the entrance to the World Trade Center's great transportation hub.
It was designed by the Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava. He said he was inspired by the image of a dove released from a child's hands. It opened in 2016, years behind schedule, and cost around four billion dollars, making it one of the most expensive stations ever built.
Beneath the original towers there was a station for the PATH train, which links Manhattan with New Jersey, and a vast underground shopping concourse. All of…
12
The Rescuers' Chapel and the World That Changed
You are in front of St. Paul's Chapel on Broadway. It is the oldest church building still in use in Manhattan: it was completed in 1766. In 1789, George Washington came here to pray on the day he took office as the first president.
The towers stood just a few hundred metres away. When they fell, the chapel was buried in dust and paper, but its structure held. A large sycamore in the churchyard was brought down by the debris, and many believe it helped shield the building.
For the next eight months the chapel never closed. It became a place of rest for the firefighters, police officers and co…
How long does the "New York: the 102 Minutes of September 11 and the World That Came After" audio tour take?
It has about 22 minutes of audio across 12 stops and a 4.3 km walking route (~1 h 5 min on foot). Plan roughly 1 h 30 min in total, or split it up: you can pause and resume anytime.
Where does the tour start?
At stop 1, "The Bridge a City Crossed to Escape" (coordinates 40.7058, -73.9966). The app guides you from stop to stop with a map.
Is it free?
Trevurs is a free app for iOS and Android. There is also an optional Premium version, from USD 1.99, with unlimited offline downloads, access to every tour and no ads. It also helps keep an independent app alive.
Why use an audio tour instead of a guided group tour?
No group to keep up with and no guide to wait for. Start at any time of day, on your own schedule. Go at your own pace: pause, rewind or skip any stop. No need to commit 2 or 3 hours to a single tour: do one stop or the whole route. Works offline once downloaded.
What languages is this audio guide available in?
This tour is available in Spanish, English, Portuguese, French, Italian. Switch languages anytime from inside the app.
Do I need wifi to listen to this tour?
No. Download the tour over wifi before you go, then listen without any data connection.
How do I access this tour?
Download Trevurs on iPhone (App Store) or Android (Google Play), then open New York and pick "New York: the 102 Minutes of September 11 and the World That Came After". No account required to start.
