Together with the memorial, the National September 11 Museum shares the history and impact of the September 11th attacks with visitors from all around the world. Visiting the museum allows you to learn about that tragic day and the aftermath through artifacts, artwork, images, personal accounts, and more.
The experience is sobering, moving, and rewarding. A walk through this museum feels almost more like a memory than an education, especially to New Yorkers who lived through that time and others around the country and world who also bore witness to that day.
Visiting the 9/11 Memorial is a must, of course, especially with a local guide who can unlock a better understanding of that day. But visiting the museum afterward — whether with or without a guide — is also truly worth the time and expense.
This post will help you plan your visit and give you a preview of the major exhibits in the 9/11 Museum.
General museum info
The 9/11 Museum opened to the public on May 21, 2014, after a ceremony attended by then-President Barack Obama and a special viewing period reserved for victims’ families and responders.
When you first see the ground-level museum pavilion on the eastern edge of the memorial plaza, you’d be forgiven if you think it looks smaller than expected. This pavilion houses a security checkpoint, a cafe, and a screening room.
But the museum’s exhibit space is actually below ground, intentionally constructed in and around the footprints of the Twin Towers and incorporating remnants of the original World Trade Center.
The museum says the pavilion “serves as a bridge between the memory of past events and the promise of renewal through reconstruction.” You see this blending of past and present both in the underground museum and at the street-level memorial alongside the rebuilt World Trade Center. Pretty cool if you think about it.
The museum’s permanent collection holds more than 82,000 artifacts — including archaeological remnants, material evidence, first-person testimonies,historical records, and more — that help tell the stories of victims, survivors, and emergency responders.
Planning your visit
Budget a minimum of 90 minutes to two hours for your visit to the museum. This is on top of the time you intend to spend visiting the memorial plaza. Along with exploring the exhibits, you want to factor in getting through the line, checking your coat, and using the restroom (because free bathrooms in NYC are nothing to sneer at).
I’ll share more about guided tours below, but just a quick note here that any of our tours with museum tickets are skip-the-line, so you can save some time in the queue, though you’ll still go through security. This includes our guided 9/11 Museum tour as well as our memorial tours that come with museum tickets. They’re all skip-the-line museum entry.
So 90-120 minutes is a good estimate for how long to spend, but you could easily spend 3-4 hours inside if you have the patience and stamina (physical and emotional) to immerse yourself in everything the museum offers.
Getting to the museum
The 9/11 Museum’s official address is 180 Greenwich Street, New York, NY 10007, which is in the Financial District. We strongly recommend you to take public transportation to avoid the area’s traffic congestion and the limited (and expensive) parking options.
Subway
The best way to get to the museum is by train. The closest stops are WTC Cortlandt (1 train), Cortlandt Street (R or W trains), and World Trade Center (E train). Fulton Street station (A, C, J, Z, 2, 3, 4, or 5) is also nearby.
Here are your full options:
- E to World Trade Center
- 1 to WTC Cortlandt
- R or W to Cortlandt Street
- A or C to Chambers Street
- A, C, J, Z, 2, 3, 4, or 5 to Fulton Street
- 2 or 3 to Park Place
Whichever train you take, you’ll emerge either on the street very close to the museum or inside the Oculus transportation and shopping center, just across the street.
Car
The streets adjacent to the museum are closed to vehicles (another reason to take the subway) so a cab will have to drop you off a block or more away. If you’re coming by Uber/Lyft, enter “9/11 Memorial and Museum” as your destination. If you’re taking a yellow taxi, tell the driver to take you to the 9/11 Museum in Lower Manhattan.
If you’re driving, some paid parking options include the LAZ Battery Parking Garage at 70 Greenwich Street and the SP Plus garages at 250 Vesey Street and 200 Liberty Street. Just keep in mind that you’ll still need to walk up to 10 minutes to get to the museum from these garages.
If you’re driving either from or through New Jersey, you can park near a PATH train station in New Jersey and then take the train to the World Trade Center in New York City (see below).
PATH
The PATH train has stations in Newark, Harrison, Jersey City, and Hoboken in New Jersey. Take the train to the World Trade Center (it’s the last stop). After you disembark, you’ll emerge inside the Oculus.
Tickets to the 9/11 Museum
Unlike access to the memorial, the museum isn’t free and must be reserved. If you visit Ground Zero with our tour and select the optional museum admission as part of your booking, we’ll handle getting the museum ticket for you.
If you’re going on your own, you can buy museum tickets up to six months in advance. If you’d like to buy in advance, you can easily do so using the museum’s website. Purchasing tickets involves selecting an entry time, which allows for smoother security lines and less waiting. Same-day tickets are available online as well as at the museum’s box office.
Ticket prices:
- Adults: $36
- Young adults (13 to 17)/seniors (65 and older)/college students: $30
- Youth (7 to 12): $24
- U.S. veterans: $25
- FDNY/NYPD/PAPD: $19
- 9/11 family members/rescue and recovery workers/museum members/active U.S. military/children (6 and younger): Free but you must reserve a ticket
- Family Pass: $106-$125
Purchasing a Family Pass can be a good value. The four-person (two adults and two children) pass costs $106 and the five-person (two adults and three children) pass costs $125.
You can also get free museum admission for up to four people on Monday evenings from 5:30 p.m.-7 p.m. However, availability is limited and you must reserve those complimentary tickets in advance online.
Museum hours
The museum is open Wednesday-Monday from 9 a.m.-7 p.m. The museum is open on select Tuesdays throughout the year and has extended hours around the holidays.
Last admission is an hour before closing time.
Every year on September 10, the museum closes early (usually at 4 p.m.) and remains closed all day on September 11. Only the 9/11 community is permitted access on that day. (The memorial plaza opens to the public at 3 p.m. on September 11.)
Accessibility
The museum is wheelchair accessible and has ramps, escalators, or elevators. Visitors with disabilities may use mobility devices, such as wheelchairs, mobility scooters, walkers, crutches, and canes. The museum also offers manual wheelchairs and wheeled walkers on loan free of charge to guests on a first-come, first-served basis.
Service animals are welcome.
Seating inside the museum is limited. Benches are available but are not always readily available.
Installations that feature audio include open captioning or transcripts. The rentable audio guide device includes an optional audio description tour, with detailed descriptions of the museum’s exhibitions, for vision-impaired visitors as well as an American Sign Language video tour for hearing-impaired guests.
Security
All visitors to the museum must go through airport-style security screening before entering so you should bring only essential items with you.
The museum prohibits alcohol, glass bottles, paint, markers, outside food and drinks, weapons, explosives, tools, controlled substances, animals (except service animals), and anything the staff deems inappropriate.
Museum exhibits
The permanent collection in the museum is impressively large and detailed. You can even search the online catalog database to preview the collection.
Here are some of the best exhibits in the 9/11 Museum. Some of these are covered during the available guided tour (see below) while others you can visit on your own.
Survivors’ Stairs
A concrete staircase salvaged from the wreckage of the World Trade Center became known as the Survivor Stairs. On 9/11, hundreds of people used this outdoor staircase at the original WTC plaza to escape the burning complex and get to safety.
Today, the staircase is installed adjacent to an escalator and a museum staircase, which allows visitors to descend alongside the artifact into the main exhibit area below.
Memorial Hall
This space, located in between the footprints of the original twin towers, is home to an extraordinary installation of two works of art.
First, 2,983 watercolor squares mounted on the massive wall — each a different shade of blue and each representing every victim of the 1993 and 2001 attacks. This work, by artist Spencer Finch, is titled “Trying to Remember the Color of the Sky on That September Morning.”
It surrounds a piece by artist Tom Joyce, who fashioned the quotation “No Day Shall Erase You From the Memory of Time” from reclaimed World Trade Center steel. The words come from “The Aeneid” by the Roman poet Virgil.
Foundation Hall
Foundation Hall, adjacent to the footprint of the north tower, is the largest space in the museum. The hall features several more exhibits and artifacts, including the so-called Last Column — a piece of steel that recovery workers removed from Ground Zero in a ceremony in May 2002, marking the end of the recovery stage. The column is covered with mementos and signatures left by the workers.
One side of Foundation Hall is actually the exposed slurry wall, which was built in the 1960s to hold back the waters of the Hudson River while workers dug down to bedrock and then constructed the foundation of the twin towers.
“In Memoriam”
This exhibit commemorates each victim of the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, and February 26, 1993. The four walls of each room are covered with a floor-to-ceiling presentation of 2,983 portrait photographs of all the victims, who were from more than 90 countries.
In the center of the gallery, cases display recovered property and objects that represent the interests and activities of many of the victims. New cases are brought in every year. Note that photography isn’t allowed inside this exhibit.
“September 11, 2001”
This three-part historical exhibition’s collection of artifacts, photos, testimonies, and audio and video recordings chronicle 9/11, the historical context leading up to that day (including the 1993 bombing), and the aftermath of the attacks through the end of the recovery and its ramifications.
Local tip: This exhibit is an unvarnished recounting of the tragedy, so it isn’t recommended for very young children.
“Revealed: The Hunt for Bin Laden”
This exhibit is different from the others, as it’s only online, so you can enjoy it today — now — free of charge.
With access to over 60 artifacts never before shared with the public, “Revealed: The Hunt for Bin Laden” leads you through Operation Neptune Spear, which was the global hunt for Osama bin Laden. You’ll hear testimony from intelligence officers, law enforcement, military members, and others who were involved in the 10-year hunt and eventual raid on bin Laden’s compound in Pakistan.
Guided tours
The 9/11 Museum offers excellent guided tours to enhance your understanding of that tragic day and the aftermath. By sharing stories of hope, resilience, and remembrance, the expert guides help visitors navigate the massive space and experience the exhibits. Each guide conducts the tour a little differently to fulfill the museum’s mission to honor the victims of the terrorist attacks and to educate visitors so that the stories live on.
We collaborate with the museum to offer a range of guided tours. Our best is the VIP All Access Tour at Ground Zero, since it also includes a ticket to the One World Observatory, a fitting capstone to any Ground Zero visit.
But we have other options if you don’t want to visit Freedom Tower or prefer a self-guided visit. However you visit, it’s worth seeing this incredible museum on your trip to New York if you haven’t yet.
A place of remembrance and education
Millions of people worldwide witnessed the 9/11 attacks. And now, younger generations have only learned about the tragedy in school or from books and films. And yet the 9/11 Museum is a unique and special place for all of us to truly appreciate the impact 9/11 had on the world.
The museum holds some of the darkest memories in the country’s history, and immersing oneself in the exhibits and their lessons can be hard. But it’s necessary. And it’s an honor and privilege to be able to do it and take those stories with us.
Ground Zero tour guides all have a personal connection to September 11. We take the time to share those memories and experiences with every tour group. Whether you see just the memorial or choose the 9/11 Museum tour, you will come away changed and enriched from the experience.
And hopefully, you will help preserve the past so we can all remember for the future.
