9/11, Then and Now

[Kristin Moore]

9/11, Then and Now



The twin towers of New York City's World Trade Center smolder (top) after terrorists flew two jetliners into them on the morning of September 11, 2001. The towers would soon collapse, killing about 2,750 people and making the Empire State Building (bottom) the tallest building in the city for the first time since 1972.

By 2011 Freedom Tower, built on the site of the former trade center, is expected to surpass the 1931 landmark in height, if not in the hearts of New Yorkers.

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—Photographs by Marty Lederhandler/AP

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/09/photogalleries/9-11/

[Kristin Moore]

Coated in ashes from the collapsed towers, survivors (top) move through smoke and debris on downtown New York's Fulton Street, about a block from the World Trade Center, on the day of the attack. On July 19, 2006, (bottom) pedestrians stroll the same stretch. Behind them the gateway to the World Trade Center PATH (Port Authority Trans-Hudson) rail station, built in 2003, awaits its replacement in 2009 by a futuristic transportation hub.

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—Photographs by Gulnara Samoilova/AP

[Kristin Moore]

Skeletal exterior walls of the World Trade Center stand like crooked gravestones (top) as firefighters work in the aftermath of New York's 9/11 terrorist attacks.

On the same street on June 19, 2006, pedestrians have a clearer view of ground zero and its future. By 2013 the 1,776-foot (541-meter) Freedom Tower is to be flanked by three smaller skyscrapers, arrayed in a descending semicircle.

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—Photographs by Mark Lennihan/AP

[Kristin Moore]

A military helicopter hovers on September 12, 2001, near a breach in the Pentagon created the day before, when hijackers flew American Airlines Flight 77 into the U.S. armed forces headquarters outside Washington, D.C., killing 189 people. (Related: "Team from National Geographic Killed in Pentagon Crash" [September 12, 2001].)

On June 21, 2006, the same section of the Pentagon stands strong, the result of a reconstruction effort that was largely completed by September 11, 2002.

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—Photographs by Ron Edmonds/AP

[Kristin Moore]

A U.S. flag flies at a makeshift altar (top) overlooking the investigation at the United Airlines Flight 93 crash site in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, on September 16, 2001.

Hijackers affiliated with the al Qaeda terrorist network had planned to divert the California-bound plane to Washington, D.C., as part of the September 11, 2001, attacks. Passengers, however, fought back, crashing the plane before it could meet its mark.

Today a flag-bedecked fence cordons off the field, pictured at bottom on June 20, 2006.

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—Photographs by Gene J. Puskar/AP