The atrocities in London on 7 July naturally make us think back to the terrible events in New York four years ago. The 9/11 attacks killed 2,746 people, with another 25,000 being evacuated from Lower Manhattan.
It was a symbolic, dramatic, and tragic event that had an impact on the whole world, led to wars in two countries and further attacks in Madrid and London.
From the outset 9/11 was clearly a turning point in history, and New York museums quickly looked for an appropriate response. Within weeks of the attack on the World Trade Center (WTC) a meeting of more than 30 New York area museums was held to discuss the matter. All agreed that it was essential to record the event through collecting film, photographs and oral history testimony.
From the start it was recognised that the story could not be recorded through sound and film media alone: an attempt had to be made to collect artefacts to respond to a powerful public need for something tangible to help them understand and react to what had happened.
A number of museums, such as the Museum of the City of New York, have collected and displayed small amounts of material, in particular the expressions and symbols of sympathy and support brought together by New York City residents and visitors.
But the only museum with the capacity to take on such a large project was the New York State Museum (NYSM) in the state capital, Albany.
Mark Schaming, the director of exhibitions and education at the NYSM, led the project, with the contemporary collecting coordinated by Craig Williams, a senior historian. From the outset, the two men were clear about the type of material they wanted to collect.
They also saw that a substantial permanent exhibition could be brought together in a new space as a logical extension of the NYSM's existing galleries on the history of New York City. But at first, the opportunities for museums to collect were, not surprisingly, very limited.
Within hours of the disaster it was decided that the task of searching for human remains, personal effects and evidence relating to the aircraft, the terrorists and the collapse of the twin towers could not be completed at Ground Zero.
Debris was transported in trucks and barges to a reopened landfill site on Staten Island, eerily named Fresh Kills (the Dutch-derived name means 'freshwater stream').
During the next ten months this became the largest crime investigation scene in history. Debris was sifted to allow even small objects to be found as they passed along conveyor belts. More than 4,000 human remains and 54,000 personal items were found.
From November, museum staff were granted limited access to Fresh Kills, but were not allowed to take photographs or to touch any material. The NYSM team politely persisted with their requests to be given access.
The regulations started to be relaxed when the officers leading the operation began to realise that the museum was recording not only what had happened to the WTC, but also the story of the recovery and crime investigation.
'The evidence teams then became our curators on the ground,' says Schaming; they helped select 30 tonnes of material for the museum. With the direct backing of the governor of New York, George Pataki, the museum was eventually given permission to acquire a fire engine that had been badly damaged by the collapse of the towers.
The authorities have returned identifiable personal items to their owners or their families, and some of these people have subsequently contacted the NYSM to offer material. Staff at the museum have had several tear-filled meetings with bereaved relatives who have come to offer personal possessions or biographies of their loved ones and have themselves been given access to counselling by a psychologist.
One widow donated the wallet that belonged to her dead husband, including its contents of $600 that she says she cannot touch. The museum is also collecting examples of 'response' material: photographs, artworks, messages and tributes that people had placed in chapels and squares close to Ground Zero or have subsequently sent to firecrews or the museum itself.
Having started such a massive collecting programme, Schaming says that the museum then found itself under some pressure to open an exhibition prior to the first anniversary of 9/11. A second phase opened a year later in August 2003.
The team did not want the exhibition to appear morbid or sensationalist, and were worried how it might be received by grieving families, survivors or young children. Some potentially distressing items are intentionally in cases too high to be viewed by small children (and, unfortunately, wheelchair users).
To give balance, they set out to host an exhibition about the WTC, rather than just about its destruction. At the entrance there is information about its construction in the early 1970s and the previous bomb attack of 1993.
The exhibition is then divided into three sections - Rescue, Recovery, Response - starting with the latter as a consciously more hopeful and positive start for the visitor.
The Response display is dominated by a section of fencing removed from Liberty Plaza adjoining Ground Zero. It is strewn with items left in the weeks after the disaster: photographs of missing people, messages of hope, anger and despair, flags, teddy bears and wreaths.
A central case holds examples of tributes and messages sent to the New York Fire Department by fire services from all over the US and around the world. These include a fireman's helmet inscribed by the Reading Fire and Rescue Company in the UK that says: 'Our thoughts are with you.'
Oral history booths provide a few examples of people's stories and a widescreen projector plays 9/11, the Naudet brothers' documentary of the day's events - they had started the day working on a training film about cadet firefighters and, by chance, were able to take the only footage of the first impact at 8.46am on the North Tower.
In the main exhibition, two 20-foot-high twisted columns, one from each tower, are placed symbolically at opposite ends of the gallery, and in the centre sits a heavily damaged fire engine. Engine 6 was trapped under a collapsed pedestrian bridge when the towers fell and four of its crew were killed in the evacuation of the North Tower. Their photographs and biographies surround the fire engine display.
The battered turnout coat of firefighter Jonathan Ielpi has a caption that explains he was killed while evacuating the South Tower. The coat was personally donated by Ielpi's father, Lee, also a fireman, who recovered his son's body from the wreckage.
The realisation that some of the pieces of metal on display are fragments of the two doomed aircraft comes as a genuine shock. The dominance of the fire engine and the huge sections of the towers seem to allow the visitor to forget for a moment the cause of the whole event.
One section of a tower girder has a fragment of aircraft cabin floor imbedded in it. Closer examination of the smaller display cases reveals a very recognisable armrest with safety-belt fitting and a frequent flyer card of an unknown passenger, as perhaps the most poignant elements of the exhibition.
There is deliberately little text throughout. Schaming explains this was in order to allow an air of neutrality and to let the objects speak for themselves, and he wanted to avoid a continuous narrative. A large dramatic graphic timeline, punctuated by related objects, sets out the dreadful events of the day.
The Recovery section of the exhibition tells the story of the work at Fresh Kills by the authorities and the collecting work of the museum team. It includes some of the anonymous, everyday items that were recovered: heat-damaged phones, computer disks and floor numbers from the lifts.
This section leaves the visitor wanting to know more, but it is followed up by an excellent booklet about the recovery and collecting work available in the museum shop.
No formal evaluation of the exhibition has yet been carried out, but it is clear that the gallery has had a huge impact. The special private event for families and survivors was an emotional affair.
In the first few weeks after opening, visitors stood in sombre ordered lines to walk reverentially through the exhibition. There were regularly tears. On the first two anniversaries of 9/11, flowers and messages were left in the galleries.
The NYSM team say they did not set out to create a memorial, and there is purposely no comment book or comment board in the gallery. But at first some visitors did see the exhibition as a means of paying respect and sharing feelings of sadness and confusion.
The families said the exhibition helped them feel close to their loved ones. Out of more than 2.5 million visitors there has only been one complaint from someone who found the exhibition inappropriate.
Schaming feels the mood is now changing and the exhibition is in transition from 'the sacred to the historical'. Visitors are now less emotional, but nevertheless deeply interested in the story.
There are some younger children visiting who do not remember the events, so the exhibition may eventually need to provide more background information.
A wider demand is now being met by a national touring exhibition of photographs and smaller objects, and there are plans for a larger-scale version to go to Europe in 2006.
To European eyes, the exhibition may appear to be overly patriotic and partisan. A huge stars-and-stripes flag hangs over the gallery. It had once flown over one of the towers and was found in the debris; during the recovery operation at Fresh Kills, it was flown every day.
Its caption describes the American flag as 'the symbol of freedom for the world'. But back then, unlike the growing tide of opposition to the Iraq war now, there was a shared feeling of despair and outrage in the US about 9/11. The exhibition accurately reflects this position.
There is no mention in the exhibition of the names of the terrorists and no exploration of their story or motives. Schaming admits there was a long debate about whether to use a photograph of one of the terrorists caught on a CCTV camera arriving at the airport in the timeline.
It was decided not to use it in case it gave 'prominence to their cause', and because the wider political picture is outside the scope of the exhibition that is principally a New York story. None of the response material displayed includes anything from Islamic groups, although some material has been collected.
The NYSM team says that there was no political interference in the process. The museum had to be sensitive to the feelings of the bereaved and the authorities they had painstakingly built a relationship with. If the museum staff became participants in the story, rather than just objective observers, it was a necessary role: without building trust the project would have been impossible.
The exhibition does suffer from a lack of historical perspective, opening so soon after the events it is documenting. Schaming is adamant that this will be overcome by adapting the exhibition in future years.
As the wounds heal it may be possible to include a broader spectrum of response material, maybe even including some that is anti-American. 'The process is still unfolding,' says Schaming. A few items relating to one terrorist were found, and they are still held by the FBI. If they do become available to the museum, Schaming says they could not be displayed now, but in future years, who knows?
Meanwhile, Schaming is planning how to update the exhibition with the unfolding controversial plans to redevelop the WTC site. He is on the advisory committee for a new museum at the site, which is already hotly debating many of the issues about portraying 9/11.
Overall, the NYSM has been hugely successful at placing itself at the centre of the state agenda through this remarkable project and exhibition. The initiative received $1m additional funding from the governor and New York State legislature. There can be no doubt it is meeting a genuine need.
It may not help visitors answer the most important question: why? That is for the future. But it records and tells a story, a New York story, proving that museums can fulfil this role more completely than any other organisation.
David Pearson is the museums manager at Reading Museum Service
It was a symbolic, dramatic, and tragic event that had an impact on the whole world, led to wars in two countries and further attacks in Madrid and London.
From the outset 9/11 was clearly a turning point in history, and New York museums quickly looked for an appropriate response. Within weeks of the attack on the World Trade Center (WTC) a meeting of more than 30 New York area museums was held to discuss the matter. All agreed that it was essential to record the event through collecting film, photographs and oral history testimony.
From the start it was recognised that the story could not be recorded through sound and film media alone: an attempt had to be made to collect artefacts to respond to a powerful public need for something tangible to help them understand and react to what had happened.
A number of museums, such as the Museum of the City of New York, have collected and displayed small amounts of material, in particular the expressions and symbols of sympathy and support brought together by New York City residents and visitors.
But the only museum with the capacity to take on such a large project was the New York State Museum (NYSM) in the state capital, Albany.
Mark Schaming, the director of exhibitions and education at the NYSM, led the project, with the contemporary collecting coordinated by Craig Williams, a senior historian. From the outset, the two men were clear about the type of material they wanted to collect.
They also saw that a substantial permanent exhibition could be brought together in a new space as a logical extension of the NYSM's existing galleries on the history of New York City. But at first, the opportunities for museums to collect were, not surprisingly, very limited.
Within hours of the disaster it was decided that the task of searching for human remains, personal effects and evidence relating to the aircraft, the terrorists and the collapse of the twin towers could not be completed at Ground Zero.
Debris was transported in trucks and barges to a reopened landfill site on Staten Island, eerily named Fresh Kills (the Dutch-derived name means 'freshwater stream').
During the next ten months this became the largest crime investigation scene in history. Debris was sifted to allow even small objects to be found as they passed along conveyor belts. More than 4,000 human remains and 54,000 personal items were found.
From November, museum staff were granted limited access to Fresh Kills, but were not allowed to take photographs or to touch any material. The NYSM team politely persisted with their requests to be given access.
The regulations started to be relaxed when the officers leading the operation began to realise that the museum was recording not only what had happened to the WTC, but also the story of the recovery and crime investigation.
'The evidence teams then became our curators on the ground,' says Schaming; they helped select 30 tonnes of material for the museum. With the direct backing of the governor of New York, George Pataki, the museum was eventually given permission to acquire a fire engine that had been badly damaged by the collapse of the towers.
The authorities have returned identifiable personal items to their owners or their families, and some of these people have subsequently contacted the NYSM to offer material. Staff at the museum have had several tear-filled meetings with bereaved relatives who have come to offer personal possessions or biographies of their loved ones and have themselves been given access to counselling by a psychologist.
One widow donated the wallet that belonged to her dead husband, including its contents of $600 that she says she cannot touch. The museum is also collecting examples of 'response' material: photographs, artworks, messages and tributes that people had placed in chapels and squares close to Ground Zero or have subsequently sent to firecrews or the museum itself.
Having started such a massive collecting programme, Schaming says that the museum then found itself under some pressure to open an exhibition prior to the first anniversary of 9/11. A second phase opened a year later in August 2003.
The team did not want the exhibition to appear morbid or sensationalist, and were worried how it might be received by grieving families, survivors or young children. Some potentially distressing items are intentionally in cases too high to be viewed by small children (and, unfortunately, wheelchair users).
To give balance, they set out to host an exhibition about the WTC, rather than just about its destruction. At the entrance there is information about its construction in the early 1970s and the previous bomb attack of 1993.
The exhibition is then divided into three sections - Rescue, Recovery, Response - starting with the latter as a consciously more hopeful and positive start for the visitor.
The Response display is dominated by a section of fencing removed from Liberty Plaza adjoining Ground Zero. It is strewn with items left in the weeks after the disaster: photographs of missing people, messages of hope, anger and despair, flags, teddy bears and wreaths.
A central case holds examples of tributes and messages sent to the New York Fire Department by fire services from all over the US and around the world. These include a fireman's helmet inscribed by the Reading Fire and Rescue Company in the UK that says: 'Our thoughts are with you.'
Oral history booths provide a few examples of people's stories and a widescreen projector plays 9/11, the Naudet brothers' documentary of the day's events - they had started the day working on a training film about cadet firefighters and, by chance, were able to take the only footage of the first impact at 8.46am on the North Tower.
In the main exhibition, two 20-foot-high twisted columns, one from each tower, are placed symbolically at opposite ends of the gallery, and in the centre sits a heavily damaged fire engine. Engine 6 was trapped under a collapsed pedestrian bridge when the towers fell and four of its crew were killed in the evacuation of the North Tower. Their photographs and biographies surround the fire engine display.
The battered turnout coat of firefighter Jonathan Ielpi has a caption that explains he was killed while evacuating the South Tower. The coat was personally donated by Ielpi's father, Lee, also a fireman, who recovered his son's body from the wreckage.
The realisation that some of the pieces of metal on display are fragments of the two doomed aircraft comes as a genuine shock. The dominance of the fire engine and the huge sections of the towers seem to allow the visitor to forget for a moment the cause of the whole event.
One section of a tower girder has a fragment of aircraft cabin floor imbedded in it. Closer examination of the smaller display cases reveals a very recognisable armrest with safety-belt fitting and a frequent flyer card of an unknown passenger, as perhaps the most poignant elements of the exhibition.
There is deliberately little text throughout. Schaming explains this was in order to allow an air of neutrality and to let the objects speak for themselves, and he wanted to avoid a continuous narrative. A large dramatic graphic timeline, punctuated by related objects, sets out the dreadful events of the day.
The Recovery section of the exhibition tells the story of the work at Fresh Kills by the authorities and the collecting work of the museum team. It includes some of the anonymous, everyday items that were recovered: heat-damaged phones, computer disks and floor numbers from the lifts.
This section leaves the visitor wanting to know more, but it is followed up by an excellent booklet about the recovery and collecting work available in the museum shop.
No formal evaluation of the exhibition has yet been carried out, but it is clear that the gallery has had a huge impact. The special private event for families and survivors was an emotional affair.
In the first few weeks after opening, visitors stood in sombre ordered lines to walk reverentially through the exhibition. There were regularly tears. On the first two anniversaries of 9/11, flowers and messages were left in the galleries.
The NYSM team say they did not set out to create a memorial, and there is purposely no comment book or comment board in the gallery. But at first some visitors did see the exhibition as a means of paying respect and sharing feelings of sadness and confusion.
The families said the exhibition helped them feel close to their loved ones. Out of more than 2.5 million visitors there has only been one complaint from someone who found the exhibition inappropriate.
Schaming feels the mood is now changing and the exhibition is in transition from 'the sacred to the historical'. Visitors are now less emotional, but nevertheless deeply interested in the story.
There are some younger children visiting who do not remember the events, so the exhibition may eventually need to provide more background information.
A wider demand is now being met by a national touring exhibition of photographs and smaller objects, and there are plans for a larger-scale version to go to Europe in 2006.
To European eyes, the exhibition may appear to be overly patriotic and partisan. A huge stars-and-stripes flag hangs over the gallery. It had once flown over one of the towers and was found in the debris; during the recovery operation at Fresh Kills, it was flown every day.
Its caption describes the American flag as 'the symbol of freedom for the world'. But back then, unlike the growing tide of opposition to the Iraq war now, there was a shared feeling of despair and outrage in the US about 9/11. The exhibition accurately reflects this position.
There is no mention in the exhibition of the names of the terrorists and no exploration of their story or motives. Schaming admits there was a long debate about whether to use a photograph of one of the terrorists caught on a CCTV camera arriving at the airport in the timeline.
It was decided not to use it in case it gave 'prominence to their cause', and because the wider political picture is outside the scope of the exhibition that is principally a New York story. None of the response material displayed includes anything from Islamic groups, although some material has been collected.
The NYSM team says that there was no political interference in the process. The museum had to be sensitive to the feelings of the bereaved and the authorities they had painstakingly built a relationship with. If the museum staff became participants in the story, rather than just objective observers, it was a necessary role: without building trust the project would have been impossible.
The exhibition does suffer from a lack of historical perspective, opening so soon after the events it is documenting. Schaming is adamant that this will be overcome by adapting the exhibition in future years.
As the wounds heal it may be possible to include a broader spectrum of response material, maybe even including some that is anti-American. 'The process is still unfolding,' says Schaming. A few items relating to one terrorist were found, and they are still held by the FBI. If they do become available to the museum, Schaming says they could not be displayed now, but in future years, who knows?
Meanwhile, Schaming is planning how to update the exhibition with the unfolding controversial plans to redevelop the WTC site. He is on the advisory committee for a new museum at the site, which is already hotly debating many of the issues about portraying 9/11.
Overall, the NYSM has been hugely successful at placing itself at the centre of the state agenda through this remarkable project and exhibition. The initiative received $1m additional funding from the governor and New York State legislature. There can be no doubt it is meeting a genuine need.
It may not help visitors answer the most important question: why? That is for the future. But it records and tells a story, a New York story, proving that museums can fulfil this role more completely than any other organisation.
David Pearson is the museums manager at Reading Museum Service
