09/11/2026
This photo is from September 2011, at the Trocadéro, on the 10th anniversary of 9/11.
Today marks the 25th anniversary of the attacks.
The towers were built by a nonprofit called The French Will Never Forget, founded in 2003, and stood roughly as tall as an eight story building. They were placed so that from the plaza, the Eiffel Tower rose up between them, echoing the skyline New York lost.
One tower carried the name of every person killed on September 11, 2001. The other was covered in thousands of handwritten messages of sympathy, written by ordinary French citizens who wanted America to know they were grieving too.
Above them flew the largest French and American flags ever made in France at the time, each measuring 59 feet by 30 feet (18 by 9 meters). The ceremony drew both the American and French ambassadors, along with backing from the French presidency and the city of Paris.