Columbia Remembers: 25 Years After 9/11

Twenty-five years after September 11, 2001, we remember the nearly 3,000 people whose lives were taken that day, and we honor their families and loved ones, the survivors and first responders, and all those whose lives were forever changed.

For New Yorkers, September 11th is inseparable from the memory of this city. Its impact can be found not only in the places where we gather to remember, but in families, neighborhoods, institutions, and communities across New York. For many, the events of that day remain deeply personal. For others, particularly younger generations, September 11th has been encountered through the stories of parents and grandparents, classrooms, photographs, oral histories, memorials, and the city itself.

Twenty-five years later, those different experiences exist alongside one another. How do the memories of a day that affected an entire city continue to live within its communities—and what happens as those memories are shared from one generation to the next?

Columbia began preserving those experiences. The September 11, 2001 Oral History Project would ultimately record hundreds of people across the city, including voices that were not always represented in contemporary news coverage.

The project recognized something important: a historic event is also made up of individual lives and experiences. The story of September 11 cannot be contained in a single image, narrative, or memory.

That idea also resonates with a conversation from the Alliance Program’s Vis à Vis podcast, “Can Memory Change the Present?”, featuring sociologist Sarah Gensburger of Sciences Po and Columbia historian Carol Gluck.

In the episode, Gensburger describes collective memory as more than a single set of memories shared by everyone. From a sociological perspective, even individual memories are shaped by the world around us—by families, communities, institutions, relationships, and the social circumstances through which we experience and later recall the past. 

Gluck similarly describes public memory as an ongoing process rather than a fixed or universally shared account. People may experience and understand the same past differently, and the meanings attached to an event can evolve as societies themselves change. 

During the conversation, Gensburger reflects on the extraordinary value contemporary societies place on preserving traces of the past. She also asks researchers to remain attentive to whose memories are collected, whose stories are heard, and how social circumstances shape the ways people participate in remembrance. 

We invite you to explore the social dynamics of remembrance further by listening to our Vis à Vis episode “Can Memory Change the Present?”, a conversation with Sarah Gensburger and Carol Gluck about collective memory, public memory, and the ways societies understand and engage with their past. 

Listen to “Can Memory Change the Present?” by Vis à Vis on Spotify