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Twenty-five years after the September 11 attacks, Bryant Park will mark the anniversary with a stirring visual tribute that gives New Yorkers a way to remember—and to support the families of first responders.
On Friday, September 11, the park’s lawn will be filled with 2,753 empty chairs, one for each person killed at the World Trade Center. All of them will face south, toward the site where the Twin Towers once stood. The installation will be open from 8 am to 4 pm, turning one of Midtown’s liveliest green spaces into a place of quiet reflection. Visitors can walk among the chairs, write notes of remembrance and place carnations on the empty seats.
Bank of America, which is presenting the tribute with Bryant Park, will donate $25 for each of the first 3,000 carnations placed by members of the public. (That could generate as much as $75,000 for three organizations supporting New York’s first responders and their families: the NYC Police Foundation, the FDNY Foundation and the Port Authority PBA Widows’ and Children’s Fund.)
The daytime installation will be followed by a free memorial concert from the American Symphony Orchestra, held on the lawn from 7 to 8:15 pm as part of Bryant Park’s Picnic Performances series.
The program will include Aaron Copland’s Fanfare for the Common Man, the Adagio from Gustav Mahler’s unfinished Tenth Symphony and George Walker’s elegiac Lyric for Strings. The works were selected to honor those killed in the attacks, as well as the courage of the people who responded that day and the resilience New Yorkers demonstrated afterward.
No ticket or reservation is required for the concert. Just bring a blanket, find a place on the lawn and settle in for the performance. A livestream will also be available for anyone unable to attend in person.
While Bryant Park is usually filled with lunch breaks, movie nights, chess games and people hurrying between meetings, for one day its familiar green chairs will instead become symbols of absence—2,753 reminders of the New Yorkers, visitors, and first responders who never returned home.