Growing up in Northern New Jersey, the Twin Towers jetting up from the World Trade Center and surrounding buildings were an ever present landmark dotting not only the skyline when on the Hudson River waterfront, but the landscape from many miles inland as well.
Among my archives were these photos taken between March 1998 and just 11 days before the attacks.
View Photographs the Twin Towers and the Lower Manhattan skyline before 9/11 »
The morning of 9/11/2001 I was on a NJ Transit train heading for Hoboken where I planned to transfer to the PATH to ride to 9th Street. I never made that connection. Instead I was stranded in Hoboken for the day with no way in or out, and nothing to do but watch.
As I wrote when I first posted these images in the days after the attack:
Look elsewhere for words. I have not yet found any that does what I saw justice.
View Photographs taken on September 11, 2001 from Hoboken, NJ »
In the days, and years, since the attacks on the World Trade Center, many forms of memorials have sprung up to honor those who lost their lives that day. From the candles and makeshift notes left in public areas to the permanant monuments and statues erected by local government bodies there have been many reminders and remembrances of loved ones, lost ones, and heroic ones.
These images of 9/11 were first published on September 12, 2001, and republished in a larger format on September 1, 2011 ahead of the 10th anniversary of the attack. Other published images were taken between 1998 and 2011 from various locations around New York and New Jersey.
Chris Casciano is a freelance web developer, author, and instructor who continues to regularly commute over the same tracks that led him to Hoboken that fateful morning.