Phoenix will mark 25 years since the September 11 attacks this Thursday with an event pairing members of Arizona Task Force 1, the search-and-rescue unit that sent 62 first responders to Ground Zero in 2001, with a new generation of local youth who weren't yet born when the towers fell. The gathering, called Voices Across Generations, begins at 6 p.m. at Memorial Hall inside Steele Indian School Park, located at 300 E. Indian School Rd., with entry available from 3rd Street off Indian School Road.
According to the City of Phoenix, AZ, the evening will include a panel featuring Arizona Task Force 1 members alongside local youth, and pieces of the World Trade Center will be available for public viewing inside Memorial Hall. Arizona Task Force 1, managed by the Phoenix Fire Department, deployed those 62 firefighters, police officers, medical personnel, and canine handlers to New York City immediately after the attacks, according to the City of Phoenix. The task force members traveled more than 2,000 miles to join recovery efforts at the site.
The program will be moderated by Mark Brodie, co-host of KJZZ's “The Show,” with opening and closing remarks from Phoenix Fire Chief Mike Duran and Phoenix Police Chief Matt Giordano, per the same city announcement. Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego appointed Councilwoman Ann O'Brien to lead the city's 25th-anniversary commemoration efforts, an initiative that included partnering with the city's Office of Youth and Education to organize student focus groups that helped shape the event.
A National Rescue Team Rooted in Phoenix
Arizona Task Force 1 is one of 28 Federal Emergency Management Agency Urban Search and Rescue Task Forces nationwide, sponsored and operated by the Phoenix Fire Department's Special Operations Section. Beyond its 2001 deployment, the unit has answered the call for major national emergencies over three decades, including the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, the 2003 Space Shuttle Columbia disaster, Hurricane Katrina in 2005, and deadly flash flooding in Central Texas in July 2025, according to KTAR News.
A Building With Its Own Memorial History
Memorial Hall itself carries a layered history that predates 9/11 by nearly a century. The building was originally constructed in 1922 as an assembly hall honoring 62 Native American students from the Phoenix Indian School who enlisted to serve in World War I, according to Axios. Steele Indian School Park sits on the 72-acre former campus of the Phoenix Indian School, a federal Bureau of Indian Affairs boarding school that operated from 1891 until its closure in 1990, as reported by North Central News.
Permanent Memorials Across the Valley
The temporary display of World Trade Center artifacts at Memorial Hall echoes permanent installations already standing across Maricopa County. Arizona's official state 9/11 Memorial sits at Wesley Bolin Memorial Plaza near the State Capitol, permanently displaying a salvaged steel beam from Ground Zero mounted over a pedestal containing rubble from the Pentagon and earth from Shanksville, Pennsylvania, according to the Public Art Archive. Designed by Phoenix architectural firm Jones Studio, that memorial features 54 laser-cut statements etched into a circular steel visor that casts sunlight onto a concrete plaza base.
Elsewhere in the county, the Town of Gilbert maintains its own permanent 9/11 memorial centered on an eight-foot steel girder beam retrieved from the World Trade Center's North Tower, per Visit Phoenix. Together, the installations reflect how pieces of the towers have found permanent homes across the region in the years since the attacks. Thursday's gathering, organizers say, is meant to carry that history forward by putting Phoenix's firsthand connection to Ground Zero directly in front of the city's youngest residents.
