Heroes of the World Trade Center Walking Tour - New York

Itinerary

The Heroes of the World Trade Center Walking Tour offers visitors to New York an up-close and personal tour of the World Trade Center site and its renewal after the tragedy of 9/11.

You'll meet your guide at the entrance to St. Paul’s Chapel, within walking distance of Ground Zero. Your guide will lead you through key features within the World Trade Center area while sharing important facts and illuminating insights regarding the catastrophic events of 11 September 2001.

Significant stops on the tour include:

• St Paul’s Chapel: After the collapse of the twin towers of the World Trade Center (WTC), St. Paul's Chapel was a place of rest and refuge for recovery workers at the WTC site.
• 9/11 Memorial Preview Exhibit: A space that educates the public about the Memorial and Museum under construction at the World Trade Center site and a place where people can record their own 9/11 stories.
• The World Trade Center cross: A pair of steel beams in the shape of a Christian cross found amidst the debris of the World Trade Center.
• St. Joseph’s Chapel: Served as a space for rescue efforts and emergency equipment after the disaster with the result that many fixtures and fittings were damaged. The Chapel was completely renovated and reopened on the first anniversary of the disaster, September 11, 2002.
• 7 World Trade Center: This building is located across from the World Trade Center site. The original was destroyed on September 11, 2001, and was replaced with the new 7 World Trade Center, opened in 2006.
• The World Trade Center Site: Also known as ‘Ground Zero’, the site covers 16 acres (65,000 m2) in Lower Manhattan. The World Trade Center complex stood on the site until it was destroyed in the 9/11 attacks.
• American Express Eleven Tears Memorial: An 11-sided granite memorial dedicated to the 11 American Express employees who lost their lives on September 11, 2001. Water droplets representing tears drip from a 600lb crystal suspended from the 2nd floor ceiling.
• Winter Garden: Severely damaged in the 9/11 attacks, this glass-vaulted pavilion in NYC’s World Financial Center was rebuilt and reopened in September 2002 – the first building to be completely restored following the disaster.
• The Reflecting Absence Memorial site: The Memorial will comprise two large pools set within the original footprints of the Twin Towers with 30-foot waterfalls flowing down their sides. Names of the victims of the attacks will be inscribed around the edges of the waterfalls.
•The Firefighters’ 9/11 Memorial: This 56-foot long wall of cast bas-relief bronze honors the 343 heroic firefighters who gave their lives on September 11, 2001.
• The WTC Tribute Museum: A one-of-a kind visitor center offering ‘Person to Person History’, where you can learn the facts surrounding the catastrophe of 9/11 and find out what it meant to the people most closely involved.
• The ‘Double Check’ Statue: This life-like bronze sculpture of a businessman going through his briefcase was dented but unbroken in the hail of 9/11 debris. It became a monument to survival as rescue workers put a hardhat and other tributes on it.
• Essex World Deli, which gave out water and became the medical station after the disaster.

The tour ends at the starting point – outside the entrance to St. Paul’s Chapel.