At Wednesday's ceremony marking the first anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, public officials refrained from long-winded speeches and stuck to the basics of soft music, silence and the names of the dead, allowing those in the crowd the freedom to grieve in their own personal ways.
The morning ceremony at Ground Zero began with a minute of silence at 8:46 a.m., the moment the first plane hit one of the World Trade Center towers.
Tens of thousands of people attended the New York ceremonies Wednesday, with similar services being held in Washington, D.C., and Shanksville, Pa.
As early as 1 a.m., bagpipe and drum processionals left each of the five boroughs and made their way to Ground Zero. After the citywide moment of silence, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani was first in line to read aloud the names of those who died in the World Trade Center attacks. He began with Gordon M. Aamoth Jr.
As each victim's name was called, family members walked into the multistory pit that used to be the World Trade Center, leaving behind flowers in memory of lost loved ones.
As the recitation of the names began, a brisk wind lifted dirt from Ground Zero high into the air, surrounding the crowd and forming clouds that looked eerily like smoke.
"It's like it's their spirits," said a man sitting on a barricade next to the ceremony. The woman next to him nodded in agreement.
At the same time, people gathered in Times Square to watch the ceremony on the large-screen monitors perched above the square. One man at Times Square was Angel Bravo, who proudly held an U.S. flag in his hands and cried as he stared at the victims' names flashing across the screen.
Bravo, a Tennessee resident who grew up in the Bronx, said that although he didn't know anyone who died in the Sept. 11 attacks, he felt like he did.
