(VIDEO) 2,977 Drones Rebuild Twin Towers Over New York Harbor In 9/11 25th Anniversary Tribute

NEW YORK — A fleet of 2,977 illuminated drones rose over New York Harbor Wednesday night, forming a helix before assembling into a full-scale recreation of the Twin Towers, in a striking new public art tribute marking the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

The display, titled "2,977 Lights Over New York Harbor," used one drone-generated light for each person killed in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, encompassing victims from the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and the hijacked flights, including United Airlines Flight 93. The free public installation, produced by Texas-based drone operator Sky Elements with creative direction from Addison Mehr, was designed in close collaboration with members of the 9/11 community, including family members, survivors and first responders.

Among those involved in shaping the tribute's design were Terry Strada, widow of Tom Strada and president of 9/11 Families United; Jim Smith, husband of NYPD Officer Moira Smith, who was killed in the attacks; Tim Brown, an FDNY first responder who worked at the World Trade Center following both the 1993 bombing and the 2001 attacks; Genevieve Siller, daughter of firefighter Stephen Siller; and Brenda Berkman, a former FDNY responder and artist.

Mehr, the project's creative director and executive producer, explained the deliberate choice to represent each individual victim through a single point of light.

"The purpose of 2,977 Lights is to acknowledge individual loss within the collective history and memory of September 11th," Mehr said. "We light the exact number to hold witness for each individual life."

The drones initially rose into a spiraling helix formation before assembling into the outline of the Twin Towers at full architectural scale, a visual choice that organizers said referenced an unbuilt proposal for a World Cultural Center once envisioned for the World Trade Center site, a design that had called for open latticework towers extending public space skyward around the original towers' footprints rather than housing another office development.

The tribute's accompanying score featured music from composers John Adams, Philip Glass and Max Richter, including Adams's "On the Transmigration of Souls," a piece originally composed specifically to honor the victims of the attacks.

Sky Elements CEO Rick Boss offered a brief but pointed reflection on the significance of the display taking place in New York's skies.

"Everything in the sky over New York is for them," Boss said.

The drone show did not replace the city's traditional Tribute in Light installation, the twin beams of light that have illuminated the night sky over Lower Manhattan each Sept. 11 since shortly after the attacks. Instead, the new drone tribute stood alongside the long-running Tribute in Light display, offering what organizers described as a complementary, technologically distinct way of representing the towers' silhouette through movement and light rather than through fixed beams alone.

The project's timing and location were shaped in part by security considerations tied to New York City officials. According to DroneXL, the city initially declined to approve the drone show for Sept. 10, the eve of the actual anniversary, citing security concerns, with the flight ultimately cleared instead for Sept. 9. New York Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch had separately announced $6.5 million in counter-drone mitigation equipment on May 21, a capability historically reserved for a limited number of federal agencies, underscoring the heightened security planning surrounding large-scale drone operations over the city, even for a commemorative artistic tribute of this kind.

The installation was sponsored by the New York Foundation for the Arts and funded entirely through private philanthropy and in-kind contributions, with major support from the Cantor Fitzgerald Relief Fund, an organization tied to the financial services firm that lost 658 employees, more than two-thirds of its workforce present that day, when the World Trade Center's North Tower was struck. No public funding was used to produce the display, according to DroneXL's reporting.

The drone tribute arrives against the backdrop of an anniversary organizers have specifically framed around generational memory, given that more than 100 million Americans have now been born after the 2001 attacks and have no direct personal recollection of that day. IDEKO chief executive Korn, whose company was involved in the project, noted that the installation was intended to ensure the memory of 9/11 continues to resonate with new generations who did not experience the attacks firsthand, while Jim Smith separately said the gesture served as a reminder of the unity that emerged across New York City in the aftermath of the attacks.

The tribute also unfolds alongside an ongoing public health reality connected to that day, with the World Trade Center Health Program continuing to provide medical monitoring and treatment for first responders, survivors and residents affected by exposure to toxins at Ground Zero, a population that has seen thousands of additional deaths from related illnesses in the 25 years since the attacks themselves.

Wednesday's drone display preceded Friday's official 25th anniversary commemoration at the National September 11 Memorial plaza in Lower Manhattan, where families gathered to read aloud the names of the 2,983 victims of both the 2001 attacks and the earlier 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Commemorations were also held Friday at the Pentagon and at the Flight 93 National Memorial near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, rounding out a day of remembrance across all three sites forever connected to the attacks.

With the "2,977 Lights Over New York Harbor" installation now completed, organizers said the tribute was intended as a singular, one-time event rather than an annual fixture, offering New Yorkers and visitors a rare and technologically ambitious new way to mark the 25th anniversary before the city's ceremonies moved into their more traditional forms Friday, including the continuation of the annual Tribute in Light, which remained scheduled to illuminate the Lower Manhattan skyline from dusk on Sept. 11 through dawn the following morning, as it has every year since shortly after the attacks first occurred.