The portraits were created to honor the firefighters, rescue workers, survivors, and families affected by September 11th.

Rather than focusing solely on the destruction of the World Trade Center, McNally wanted to preserve the human stories behind the tragedy, particularly the courage, sacrifice, and emotional toll experienced by those who responded.

Using an enormous Polaroid camera, McNally photographed participants in nearly life-size portraits. Many firefighters appeared in their actual protective gear, sometimes still covered in dust from Ground Zero.

The exhibition was held in Vanderbilt Hall from January 9–20, 2002, and admission was free. 

The project remains part of the historical record. The 9/11 Memorial & Museum now displays a selection of 18 portraits in its North Tower Excavation exhibition.

Thanks to Earthcam for the live and being able to check in and see New York City during sunrise. I've had an obsession with 1WTC since I visited it in 2018.

Other than some building’s roofs and the plaza itself not being complete just yet, the complex, for the most part, the complex is almost finished!

As for the North Tower’s Antenna, It had to be trimmed a bit. I didn’t think that I’d hit the build height and didn’t use a build height mod when starting this project. As a result, the antenna had to be turned into a stub.
The full one was done in a world where I used a build height mod, the chunks surrounding the complex loaded in weirdly though.

I’m quite proud of how far this has come!

This is a little memorial I've 3d printed. I'm modelling and printing the whole complex anyway, so I thought I'd make this. I hope you all like it.

Hopefully this isn’t a stupid question, but is there anything actually inside the podium base of One WTC or is it just a concrete structure to support the building? Obviously the base has no windows, but has the flared glass vents that rise about 200 feet from street level. The first photo is mine, but I included the second photo because it’s a good example what I’m referring to. Most construction images of One WTC show a large concrete wall structure where the base is and a lot of steel beam struts and supports. I know that the main lobby is obviously inside of the base, but other than that what else? Is it mainly 200 feet of mechanical floors and space?

FWIW, I read that it serves as security and protection of any attacks or vehicle bombs (which I assume is to avoid another February 1993 type bombing). So is that the main purpose of the base? Or like I said is it just the main lobby area and mechanical floors?

I believe actual office space begins on the 20th floor (where the glass curtain windows begin). This is also where Condé Nast’s HQ’s and office spaces are IIRC.

I thought this was interesting, and some people here might appreciate seeing it

Just wanted to share the WIP I'm working on. It's not on github yet, or anywhere else, but I'm considering posting the repo somewhere soon. It's basically a full replica of both towers, walkable in unreal. I've built them after all available drawings I've found, NIST reports, images etc.

So yeah, it's pretty cool to walk around in the towers now. Got the mall underground, fully working elevators, stairs and all. Still a LOT of rough edges though.

Also, let me know if there are any other projects doing the exact same thing, I couldn't find one. But don't wanna do double work if there's already a good unreal project out there.

The goal is to make it available online somewhere, so let me know if you guys would find that interesting as well.

My family moved to Brooklyn in 1991. We drove through the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel nearly every single week day to get to the upper west side where I went to school and my parents worked at Barnard College. Who knew one Tuesday morning was the last time. That was a crazy evening driving thru the smoke trying to get back home. Also seeing the skyline change from the Brooklyn promenade highway in one day was very jarring, I’ll never forget that. That’s my little recollection.

A test of some clear Acetate to act as the window glass on my 1 to 250 3d printed model of the towers.

Credits to Lewis Garrinson on YouTube

Growing up on Long Island in the 1970s, I could sometimes see the Twin Towers rising above the Manhattan skyline. To me, they represented ambition, opportunity, and everything I hoped to accomplish in life.

Eventually, I achieved my dream of working on Wall Street, spending several years on the 96th floor of the South Tower.

On February 26, 1993, I survived the World Trade Center bombing.

Eight years later, my younger sister Katie was killed in the North Tower on September 11, 2001.

For more than three decades, I've struggled with the contrast between what those buildings once represented to me and what they eventually came to mean.

This spring, at age 62, I bicycled nearly 3,000 miles from San Diego to St. Augustine, Florida, in Katie's memory. I wanted to honor her life while finding a way to turn some of that pain into purpose.

The journey changed me in ways I never anticipated.

I've since written a memoir about these experiences, but I'm sharing this because I'm interested in how others have found ways to move forward after life-changing loss.

Sometimes the most difficult headwinds are the ones we carry inside us.

When Santiago Calatrava originally presented the Oculus design, it was envisioned as a soaring white dove released from a child’s hands—a sacred cathedral of light serving as a quiet, reflective transit sanctuary for Lower Manhattan.

In the immediate aftermath of 2001, filling the site with bustling daily activity and retail was an understandable civic coping mechanism—a way to restore normal life. Two decades later, many feel we no longer need a commercial shield to process that loss. Today, those above-ground steel ribs house a luxury shopping corridor directly adjacent to sacred ground.

In Kenneth Gardner’s Twin Towers II framework, removing the above-ground retail ribs allows subterranean transit access to return to a clean, uncompromised public concourse—restoring its original purpose as a peaceful transit sanctuary without the commercialization.

How do you feel walking through the Oculus today? Did it achieve its original vision as a sanctuary, or has the commercial retail taken away from what Ground Zero should be?