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Friday marked 25 years since the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, and thousands gathered across three states to observe the moment with a scale of remembrance not seen since the milestone tenth and twentieth anniversaries. In New York City, all four living former presidents, Barack Obama, Joe Biden, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, attended the annual ceremony at the National September 11 Memorial and Museum alongside their wives, a rare joint appearance that underscored the significance of the anniversary.
The ceremony followed its familiar, solemn format. At 8:46 a.m., the exact moment American Airlines Flight 11 struck the World Trade Center’s North Tower in 2001, the crowd observed its first moment of silence of the day, with additional pauses marking each subsequent moment of the attacks, including the strike on the South Tower, the Pentagon and the crash of United Flight 93 in a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania. As in past years, the ceremony centered on the reading of victims’ names by family members, a tradition the memorial has maintained since it began holding public commemorations, and politicians in attendance were not permitted to deliver speeches, a rule the National September 11 Memorial and Museum has enforced since 2012 to keep the focus on victims rather than political remarks.
George W. Bush, who was president at the time of the attacks, attended alongside former First Lady Laura Bush. Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton also joined the ceremony, as did Barack and Michelle Obama and Joe and Jill Biden. Other officials in attendance included New York Senator Chuck Schumer, current New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, and several former New York City mayors, including Bill de Blasio, Michael Bloomberg and Rudy Giuliani, who was mayor at the time of the attacks. Vice President JD Vance also attended the New York ceremony on behalf of the Trump administration, though he did not speak, consistent with the memorial’s longstanding rule.
President Donald Trump did not attend the New York ceremony this year, choosing instead to mark the anniversary at the Pentagon, which was also struck during the 2001 attacks. The decision followed earlier reporting that Trump had been informed he would not be permitted to give a speech at the Ground Zero event, a restriction that has applied to all political figures at the site for more than a decade. The White House disputed characterizations of the decision as a snub, and Trump also held an earlier event at the White House on September 8 honoring 9/11 first responders and New York Fire Department officials ahead of the anniversary. Trump had attended the New York ceremony during his previous term, including alongside Vance at the 23rd anniversary event in 2024.
The 2001 attacks killed 2,977 people at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and aboard the hijacked planes, including the passengers and crew of United Flight 93, who fought back against hijackers believed to be headed toward the U.S. Capitol before the plane crashed into an empty field. In the 25 years since, an additional roughly 9,000 people have died from illnesses linked to exposure at Ground Zero and the other attack sites, a toll that has grown steadily as more first responders and survivors have been diagnosed with cancers and respiratory conditions tied to the toxic dust and debris from the collapse.
Beyond the main ceremony, the city observed its usual companion tradition, the Tribute in Light, which returned to the Lower Manhattan skyline earlier in the week and once again projected two towering beams of light into the night sky where the Twin Towers once stood. Separate observance ceremonies were also held Friday at the Flight 93 National Memorial near Shanksville and at the Pentagon Memorial in Virginia, with events planned throughout the day at all three sites.
The anniversary also carried smaller, personal moments that reflected how deeply the attacks continue to shape individual lives a quarter century later. Among those honored this week was a Coast Guardsman named Matthew Palazzo, whose father served as both a Coast Guard machinery technician and an FDNY firefighter and never met his son. The Coast Guard is set to commission a new patrol boat named after Palazzo’s father in New York City this weekend, one of several smaller tributes taking place around the broader anniversary.
Speaking to reporters ahead of the ceremony, Mayor Mamdani reflected on what the anniversary means for the city each year, noting that walking through the museum reveals the breadth of what makes New York the city it is, and that anniversaries like this one offer an opportunity to recognize and remember those who were lost. His comments came after a notable moment before the ceremony began, when he shook hands with Giuliani, a gesture that drew attention given the two men’s sharply different political profiles.
Twenty-five years on, the ceremony remains one of the few recurring events in American public life that consistently draws officials from opposing political camps into the same space, even during periods of deep national division. The gathering of four former presidents alongside sitting administration officials, congressional leaders and city officials from both parties reflected that continuity, even as this year’s ceremony also highlighted the ways political tensions have crept into what has traditionally been treated as a nonpartisan day of mourning. Continuing coverage of how major political and civic events are unfolding in real time is available on Business Tech. Further details on the memorial’s history and this year’s commemorative programming are available through the National September 11 Memorial and Museum’s official site.
