Crowds of somber mourners gathered in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania on Thursday morning to mark the 13th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.
In New York, a commemoration at the National September 11 Memorial Museum began with a moment of silence to mark the moment the first plane struck the North Tower at 8:46 a.m. It was followed by the recitation of names of people killed that day and more than eight years earlier, when a bomb was detonated in the building’s garage.
The names reading of the nearly 3,000 victims of 9/11/01 and 2/26/93 at the #911Memorial. #Honor911 pic.twitter.com/esveVH4nkn
— 9/11 Memorial & Museum (@Sept11Memorial) September 11, 2014
As family members read aloud the names of people killed that day, they paused for moments of silence at the times that have become etched in memory during these annual remembrances: When the second plane struck the South Tower (9:03 a.m.), when Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon outside of Washington (9:37 a.m.), when the South Tower fell (9:59 a.m.), when Flight 93 crashed in Pennsylvania (10:03 a.m.) and when the North Tower fell (10:28 a.m.).
(A livestream of the ceremony in New York is available here.)
Flags are being flown at half-staff to commemorate the anniversary of September 11, 2001. #Honor911 pic.twitter.com/Z9jFipHPys
— 9/11 Memorial & Museum (@Sept11Memorial) September 11, 2014
This ceremony in New York, which follows a pattern established and followed each year, is expected to be the last before the opening of One World Trade Center, a 1,776-foot-tall office tower that has risen above Ground Zero. While a precise opening date is unknown, the Port Authority expects it will open later this year.
More than a decade later, it remains difficult for those who lost loved ones to return to Ground Zero.
“Coming down to the area is rough,” Franklin Murray, who lost his brother in the attacks, told the Associated Press. He has come to the ceremony before, but “it was getting harder, so I forced myself to get down here,” he said.
The memorial’s “Tribute in Light” will illuminate the skies over Manhattan beginning at 6 p.m. Thursday, as another way to remember those who died, according to the 9/11 Memorial. The memorial itself, which opened in May, will remain open until midnight, offering an opportunity for those who can’t visit during the ceremony.
Outside Washington, President Obama spoke at the Pentagon, telling family members of victims who had gathered at the facility’s open-air memorial that the attacks “sought to break our spirit,” but that the perseverance showed by the families and other Americans “proved them wrong.”
Earlier on Thursday morning, he was joined by first lady Michelle Obama and Vice President Biden for a moment of silence on the south lawn of the White House.
In Shanksville, Pa., where United Airlines Flight 93 crashed, a remembrance was held at the memorial, which sits amid wide, expansive fields of grass in southwest Pennsylvania.
Rain begins to fall as the names of the passengers and crew of Flight 93 are read between bell tolls. pic.twitter.com/BeM66mPors
— Erin McCarthy (@erinK_mccarthy) September 11, 2014
The memorial in Shanksville on Thursday included the first public display of the Congressional Gold Medal awarded to the passengers and crew who died that day.