{"id":344289,"date":"2026-09-11T20:04:15","date_gmt":"2026-09-11T20:04:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/344289\/"},"modified":"2026-09-11T20:04:15","modified_gmt":"2026-09-11T20:04:15","slug":"bryant-park-honors-9-11-victims-with-moving-empty-chair-display-facing-south-toward-world-trade-center","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/344289\/","title":{"rendered":"Bryant Park honors 9\/11 victims with moving empty chair display facing south toward World Trade Center"},"content":{"rendered":"

MIDTOWN, Manhattan (WABC) — Nearly 3,000 folding chairs lined Bryant Park on Friday as part of a public memorial honoring those lost in the Sept. 11 attacks.<\/p>\n

Each of the 2,753 chairs represented a person killed on 9\/11 and was arranged facing south toward the Twin Towers that once stood in Lower Manhattan. The installation was open to the public, with visitors invited to take a flower and leave a note on a chair.<\/p>\n

“It’s so compelling, it’s so hard, but you know they didn’t win. We are still here,” one visitor said while reflecting on the memorial.<\/p>\n

Dan Biederman, founder of the Bryant Park Corporation, said members of the public were encouraged to participate in the tribute by leaving a flower or note on each of the chairs.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

A mourner places a flower on one of 2,753 empty chairs, each signifying a life lost in the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001.<\/p>\n

AP Photo\/Heather Khalifa<\/p>\n

Another visitor emphasized the importance of remembering the tragedy and those who responded to it.<\/p>\n

“It means so much to remember how horrible this was and how much they worked to save everybody. They tried so hard,” she said.<\/p>\n

The memorial required an overnight effort to assemble it all together, with organizers lining up chairs until 4:30 a.m.<\/p>\n

Later Friday morning, many people walked around wiping tears and it was unusually quiet. Few wanted to talk, with some saying not here, not today.<\/p>\n

As visitors moved among the rows of chairs, many paused to reflect, pray and leave messages in remembrance of those lost on Sept. 11.<\/p>\n

———-<\/p>\n

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Copyright \u00a9 2026 WABC-TV. All Rights Reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MIDTOWN, Manhattan (WABC) — Nearly 3,000 folding chairs lined Bryant Park on Friday as part of a public…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":344290,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[129080,75,84,83,9,24,63],"class_list":["post-344289","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-manhattan","tag-129080","tag-manhattan","tag-manhattan-headlines","tag-manhattan-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344289","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=344289"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344289\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/344290"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=344289"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=344289"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=344289"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}