Twenty-five years after the September 11 attacks, Lower Manhattan bears little resemblance to the place left behind that morning.
The neighbourhood is crowded again. Office workers hurry towards the subway. Tourists gather around the two dark pools marking the footprints of the Twin Towers. New buildings have filled the skyline.
For younger New Yorkers, much of what followed the attacks – cameras, concrete barriers and tighter security – has simply always been there.
But ask people who lived through September 11, 2001, about what has changed, and they rarely mention the new towers.
They talk about fear. About hearing a plane overhead. About how people treated one another in the days after the Al Qaeda attacks. They remember a city that briefly came together, but also the suspicion and anxiety that followed.
“9/11 has a lifetime impact when something like that happens,” said Alexia Crawford, an Australian-born founder of a life-coaching company in New York. “The sense of freedom has changed. You become more conscious of your safety.”
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Hijacked United Airlines Flight 175 from Boston crashes into the South Tower of the World Trade Centre at 9.03 am in New York City on September 11, 2001. AFP -
A man calling out asking if anyone alive trapped amid the rubble needs help after the collapse of the first tower on 9/11. AFP -
Marcy Borders, known as the 9/11 Dust Lady, seeks refuge in an office building after the twin towers collapsed. AFP -
Former US president George W Bush with firefighter Bob Beckwith and other rescue workers on September 14, 2001, at the site of the destroyed World Trade Centre. AFP -
Businessman Edward Fine, who survived the attack after walking down 87 floors of the WTC North Tower, is covered in ash as he walks through the debris. AFP -
Smoke billows from the twin towers of the World Trade Centre after the hijacked planes crashed into them. AFP -
The collapse of the twin towers led to toxic dust, asbestos and glass fibres in the air, while underground fires smouldered at Ground Zero until December 2001. Reuters -
Debris covers streets including Park Row, which is nearly half a kilometre away from Ground Zero, after the towers collapsed. AFP -
Workmen begin dismantling the destroyed remains of the World Trade Centre on September 17, 2001. EPA
Ms Crawford also remembers New Yorkers helping one another in the aftermath of the attacks, which brought out the best in the city, she said.
But the years that followed also left the country more distrustful and divided.
Almost 3,000 people were killed after two hijacked passenger jets struck the World Trade Centre, another hit the Pentagon and a fourth crashed in Pennsylvania.
September 11 also changed the course of American foreign policy. The US went to war in Afghanistan and later Iraq, while surveillance increased and airport security, immigration and counter-terrorism policies changed at home.
A quarter of a century later, an entire generation has grown up with those changes and has little or no memory of New York before the attacks.
Sara Bitar is part of that generation. Ms Bitar, 25, a Lebanese American, was born in New York a month before September 11. She grew up with the attacks as part of the history of the city around her rather than something she could remember.
“I learnt that New Yorkers don’t let anything get in their way of helping others and getting back on their feet,” she said, comparing the city’s resilience with that of Beirut.
“It’s something that also reminds us why American foreign policy is what it is today.”
For those who were there, the memories are different. Dulcie Leimbach lived two blocks from the World Trade Centre and watched the events of that morning unfold.
“It stays with me when the commemorations occur, then the anxieties resurface and a feeling of tremendous sadness,” Ms Leimbach said.
She has watched New York change in the 25 years since. “It is much noisier, crowded and dirtier but remains vibrant despite all the huge setbacks it endures," she said. "I find it really amazing how resilient it is. I wonder how that keeps happening, but the drive and energy of NYC never fail to amaze me.”
Jonathan Wachtel was working as a television producer when the planes struck. He was only a block or two from the World Trade Centre when the first tower collapsed and had been trying to get closer to the building.
“Two police officers guarding the entrance had threatened to arrest me if I continued trying to get into the burning building,” he recalled. “They saved my life because, thanks to them, I was just far enough away not to be crushed by the debris. They surely died.
“I was swallowed by the debris cloud. There was no sky, no air, no visibility. What I remember most was the silence. I was stumbling through darkness with my hands stretched out, hoping to find a door that would open so I could breathe.”
Images from September 11 have been replayed for a quarter of a century: flames against a blue sky, paper falling through Manhattan and people running from enormous clouds of dust.
What Mr Wachtel remembers most is what he could not see.
“People imagine dust. What I remember was darkness,” he said. “The cloud was so thick there was no air, no sense of direction and no sound. I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face. At that moment, my world narrowed to one thought: Find air. Find shelter. Stay alive.”
Celhia de Lavarene, a French journalist who has lived in New York for 35 years and witnessed the attacks, recalled seeing people emerge through the streets, some without shoes and all covered in white dust.
At the time, she said, she did not understand what the dust was. She moved closer to the scene and witnessed something that would stay with her for years: a couple jumping from one of the towers.
“They had the choice between being burned and dying, or jumping,” she said.
The memory, she said, haunted her long afterward. “I was not able to sleep for nights because it was terrible.”
The part of Manhattan where he stood that morning has since been rebuilt. Billions of dollars in public and private investment brought new office towers, apartments, transport links, shops and cultural institutions. The 9/11 Memorial and Museum now draw millions of visitors.
The rebuilding also brought a new security landscape.
“New York became more secure after 9/11, with vehicle barriers, bollards, checkpoints, cameras and surveillance,” Mr Wachtel said. “The city had enormous determination to rebuild but the rebuilding process itself became mired in bureaucracy. For a place known for speed and urgency, it took far longer than many New Yorkers thought it should.”
For him, some of the changes were less visible.
“For years, every low-flying plane pulled me back to that day,” he said. “At the same time, I saw the city at its best. There was a sense of unity, resilience and purpose that emerged from the tragedy.”
New York has changed in other ways, too. In January, Zohran Mamdani became the city's first Muslim mayor, a milestone that would have been difficult to imagine in the years immediately after September 11, when Muslim New Yorkers faced increased suspicion and hostility.
Ms de Lavarene said that as a Jewish New Yorker she welcomed the city having a Muslim mayor.
She said the mayor’s religion mattered less than his performance in office, describing him as one of the city’s best mayors, noting the importance of Jewish voters to his election.
For Mr Wachtel, the election was another measure of how much the city had changed.
“Twenty-five years later, the city is very different, and the election of a Muslim mayor reflects how much New York has changed since then,” he said.
Mr Mamdani was recently praised for releasing thousands of documents showing what city officials knew about toxic air in Lower Manhattan after the attacks.
After the initial dust cloud that followed the collapse of the World Trade Center, months of pollution and lingering dust followed, causing cancers from which thousands of New Yorkers still suffer today.
"People got sick because the leaders they trusted lied and told them they were safe to breathe in toxic air," Mr Mamdani said Tuesday.
Today, people live, work and shop around the World Trade Centre. Tourists stop at the memorial before heading elsewhere in the city. A generation of New Yorkers has grown up knowing the site only as it is now.
For people such as Mr Wachtel, the distance between then and now can feel much shorter.
A low-flying plane can still take him back to that morning.
