Remembering, Together: A Guide to 9/11 Events

The terrible events of Sept. 11, 2001 brought many New Yorkers together. Now, the diverse array of events across the city commemorating the 10th anniversary of the World Trade Center attacks seek to do the same, providing several different ways in which we can gather together in remembrance.

At the time of his death, Michael Richards was completing statues for his Tuskagee Airmen series. This series honors the segregated African American Air Brigade in WWII. Flickr/Jeff SummersArt

ART

• “Ten Years Later: Ground Zero Remembered” at the Brooklyn Museum includes Christoph Draeger’s photographic jigsaw puzzle WTC, September 17 (2003) and Michael Richards’s sculpture from his Tuskegee Airmen Series (1997). Richards was an artist-in-residence at the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s studios in the World Trade Center and died in the attack. The exhibit will showcase art alongside books filled with the reflections of visitors who viewed the same works on the first anniversary. Click for more information.

• With “InSite: Art + Commemoration,” the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council and partners present art projects in venues across the city as a vehicle for memory, response and change. One of the exhibits, at the Spinning Wheel Building at West 22nd Street, hosts Chinese artist Xu Bing’s “Where Does the Dust Collect Itself?” A layer of dust — collected from the streets after 9/11 — covers the floor, punctuated by the outline of a Zen Buddhist poem. Bing will discuss the work and its relationship between the material and the spiritual world at the Museum of Chinese in the Americas on September 13. Click for more information.

• The New Museum (free on September 11), is hosting Elena del Rivero’s [Swi:t] Home: A CHANT (2001-2006), a quilt-like artwork that was created from debris that fell through the broken windows of the Spanish artist’s Cedar Street studio. Click for more information.

• “Tribute in Light,” the Municipal Art Society’s memorial honoring the victims of the World Trade Center attacks, are majestic twin beams of light that illuminate the Lower Manhattan sky. The illumination begins at dusk on Sunday,  Sept. 11 and fades with the dawn on Monday, Sept. 12. Click for more information.

In the aftermath of 9/11, over 3,000 memos, personal notes and documents from the Towers blew into del Riverio's loft. Photo Flickr/feeb

CONCERTS AND PERFORMANCES

• City Winery will host a benefit show on the 10th anniversary to raise funds for 9/11 Health Now, a foundation that  supports Ground Zero rescue workers. Performers include Maggie Roche, Richard Barone, Teddy Thompson and Jesse Harris, among others. Click for more information.

• Trinity Wall Street Church and St. Paul’s Chapel – which served as a resting place for rescue workers in the months following Sept.  11 — will each host concerts, services and non-denominational meditations and vigils the week of Sept. 11, 2011. Click here and here for more information.

• The New York Philharmonic’s free “Concert for New York for the Tenth Anniversary of 9/11 — In Remembrance and Renewal” takes place at Avery Fisher Hall on Sept. 10. Alan Gilbert will conduct Mahler’s Symphony No. 2: Resurrection. For ticket distribution, visit the Philharmonic site.

• The New York City Master Chorale will be joined by guest organist Paul Leavitt and the Empire City Men’s Chorus at two remembrance concerts on Sept. 9 (St. Paul’s Chapel) and 10 (Church of St. Paul the Apostle). Click for more information.

• Compagnia de’ Colombari ‘s “More or Less Am I” is a music-theater adaptation of “Song of Myself,” the poet Walt Whitman’s eloquent tribute to a nation’s ideals on the brink of civil war. Free performances throughout the city include those at Pier 46 of Hudson River Park and at Brooklyn Historical Society. The play is conceived and directed by the celebrated Shakespeare director, Karin Coonrod. Click for more information.

• The Joyce Theater presents “The September 11 Commemorative Performance,” featuring premiere New York dance companies and some newcomers on the lawn of Rockefeller Park of Battery Park City Parks, Sept. 10 and 11. Click for more information.

PLACES OF REMEMBRANCE

• On the bluffs of the Hudson River in the Bronx, the 28-acre garden Wave Hill offers free admission on Sept. 11 and a “Wind Elegy,” where visitors can write their remembrances to be flown on the pergola. At week’s end, the papers will be composted back into the garden. Click for more information.

Above, artifacts from Ground Zero on display at the New York City Fire Museum. The exhibit is the only complete memorial of NYC's fallen firefighters. Flickr/Jeff Summers

• The New York City Fire Museum on Spring Street has a memorial to the 343 members of FDNY-EMS who gave their lives in the rescue efforts on Sept. 11, 2001. An accompanying exhibit displays FDNY artifacts recovered from the Ground Zero site. Click for more information.

• The New York City Police Museum, on Water Street in Lower Manhattan, also offers the ongoing exhibit “9/11 Remembered.” Click for more information.

• Eleven Tears, an exhibit in the American Express tower lobby of the World Financial Center, honors 11 employees who perished in the attack. Designed by artist Ken Smith, the memorial  is an 11-sided black granite reflecting pool that honors the 11 American Express employees who lost their lives. Each employee’s name is etched into the granite, along with five words or phrases that describe the person. Click for more information.

TALKS AND TOURS

• Journalist Soledad O’Brien and New York Fire Department Captain Brenda Berkman and others will discuss “Women Heroes on 9/11 and Beyond” at 92Y Tribeca on Sept. 7. Click for more information.

• Psychologist Elizabeth Green, author of “Beyond the Reach of Ladders,” and neuroscientist Rachel Yehuda, director, Traumatic Stress Studies Division, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, will discuss “Trauma’s Afterlife: Remembering 9/11,” at the Museum of Jewish Heritage-A Living Memorial to the Holocaust on Sept. 7. Click for more information.

• The Cathedral of St. John the Divine will offer a special guided tour on Sept. 11. “I Love New York: Spotlight on Spirit“ will celebrate New York City and its indomitable spirit. Hear stories of how the cathedral and city serve as places of diversity, tolerance and human achievement, and visit the Firefighter’s Memorial within the cathedral. Click for more information.

In addition to the exhibits, gatherings and performances listed above, a comprehensive list of more than 40 commemorative events and places of reflection can be found on NYC-ARTS.org.