Green-Wood Cemetery is opening its gates Friday evening for a free program marking 25 years since the September 11, 2001 attacks, inviting the public to gather at 7 p.m. near the cemetery's Gothic Arch entrance. The two-hour event, called Notes of Tribute: Viewing the 9/11 Memorial Lights, will include a moment of silence, words of remembrance, and intimate live music, along with a view of the twin light beams that rise above Lower Manhattan each year on the anniversary.
According to Brooklyn Eagle, the attacks killed 2,977 people, and Green-Wood Cemetery itself has buried 100 people who died on September 11 or from related illnesses. Attendees are asked to gather near Green-Wood's Gothic Arch entrance in Brooklyn. Registration is recommended but not required. Admission is free and the program is open to the public.
A Hilltop Shaped by History
The vantage point for the evening is Battle Hill, the highest natural point in Brooklyn, formed by glacial moraines nearly 18,000 years ago. Green-Wood's hills overlook the Manhattan skyline. The same ground was a primary engagement site during the Revolutionary War's 1776 Battle of Brooklyn, and in 1920 the hill's Altar to Liberty monument featured an altar topped by Minerva, angled to gaze 3.5 miles across the harbor toward the Statue of Liberty, as detailed by Atlas Obscura.
Green-Wood's ties to September 11 extend beyond geography. Firefighters from FDNY Ladder Co. 118 and Engine Co. 226, along with Port Authority police officers and corporate personnel who died in Lower Manhattan, are among those interred at the cemetery, and Ladder Co. 118 suffered heavy casualties responding to the World Trade Center complex, per FireRescue1.
The Light Display Visible From the Hill
The Tribute in Light that attendees will see from Battle Hill uses eighty-eight 7,000-watt xenon spotlights arranged into two 48-foot square structures, projecting twin beams that reach four miles into the sky and can be seen up to 60 miles away on clear nights, according to the National September 11 Memorial & Museum. The installation first appeared on March 11, 2002, six months after the attacks, as a temporary display in a vacant West Street lot before it became an annual observance mounted on a Lower Manhattan parking garage, the memorial museum notes.
That same beam of light has been the subject of an article on bird safety from the NYC Bird Alliance.
A Cemetery Built for Public Gathering
Established in 1838 as one of the nation's first rural cemeteries and designated a National Historic Landmark in 2006, Green-Wood spans 478 acres and holds the remains of about 560,000 people, per the cemetery's own history. By the 1860s it drew 500,000 visitors annually. The cemetery also hosts public events like Friday's tribute.
Green-Wood's program is one piece of a broader wave of 25th-anniversary commemorations across the city this year. An aerial drone display featuring 2,977 lights recreated the outlines of the Twin Towers over New York Harbor, involving families, first responders, and survivors. Separately, cultural leaders announced Friday a $2.2 million grant for the National September 11 Memorial & Museum to expand free public admission on Sundays for a full year to coincide with the anniversary, according to the Brooklyn Eagle.
