Remembering 9/11: Annual September 11 remembrance ceremony in NYC honors victims killed 23 years ago

NEW YORK -- The National September 11 Memorial & Museum hosted its annual commemoration ceremony to observe the 23rd anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks, honoring the 2,983 men, women, and children killed in the 2001 attacks at the World Trade Center site, the Pentagon, aboard Flight 93, and those killed in the February 26, 1993, World Trade Center bombing.

The September 11 commemoration on Wednesday was for family members of the victims, who are invited as always to participate in the reading of the names.

Families of those killed clutched photographs of their loved ones, leaving flowers by their names at the 9/11 memorial and take rubbings where the names are etched on parapets surrounding the pools.

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Many of the names were read aloud by a generation of children who never met the people killed in the attack -- instead they share memories preserved by family lore.

After their feisty debate, Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump shared a decidedly more somber moment when they joined President Joe Biden and other dignitaries to mark 23 years since the Sept. 11 terror attacks.

The second Harris-Trump handshake in less than 24 hours made the ceremony a temporary focal point of the campaign but it is meant to be free of politics.

There were no speeches, only the solemn recitation of names interrupted by the rolling of a bell to mark the times planes hit the World Trade Center and when the towers fell.

Organizers said the main focus of the 9/11 Memorial & Museum remains the annual commemoration ceremony as family members gather on the Memorial plaza to remember their loved ones.

Throughout the ceremony, six moments of silence were observed, acknowledging when each of the World Trade Center towers was struck and fell, and the times corresponding to the attack on the Pentagon and the crash of United Airlines Flight 93.

A complete list of the names of the 2,983 victims of the 2001 attacks at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and on Flight 93, along with the victims of the 1993 WTC bombing that are inscribed on the Memorial can be found on the memorial's website.