9/11 then and now: Photos show how the World Trade Center area has changed

New York City has changed in many ways in the 25 years since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in New York City. The area surrounding the former site of the World Trade Center in Lower Manhattan may be among the most transformed parts of the city since that tragic day in 2001.

New photographs taken by ABC News ahead of Sept. 11 show just how much the neighborhood has changed – or in some cases, remained largely the same – over the last quarter century.

Top: A nighttime view of the Manhattan skyline with the twin towers of the World Trade Center, taken in January 2001 from across the Hudson River in Weehawken, New Jersey. Bottom: One World Trade Center and the Tribute in Light shine across the Manhattan skyline on Sept. 4, 2026.Top: The wreckage of World Trade Center 2 (South Tower), World Trade Center 3, and World Trade Center 4 building, at Ground Zero on Sept. 12, 2001. Bottom: The same intersection, looking west at the corner of Church Street and Cortlandt Street, with all-new development at the location that was once World Trade Center Plaza, about a block away from where the twin towers stood. Taken on Sept. 4, 2026.Top: Dust and debris cover the area and cloud the air on Washington Street, looking north at Rector Street, just a few blocks from the site of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001. Bottom: The same block 25 years later, with a nearly direct view of One World Trade Center, on Sept. 4, 2026.Top: A Burger King restaurant at the corner of Church Street and Liberty Street, just blocks from Ground Zero, became a temporary NYPD headquarters in the days after the terrorist attacks. Photographed on Sept. 12, 2001. Bottom: A Burger King remains at the same location 25 years later, with not much change to the exterior. Taken on Sept. 4, 2026.Top: A destroyed NYPD patrol car sits among the wreckage and debris on Church Street, in front of what was once a Brooks Brothers clothing store, directly across from the former World Trade Center Plaza. Taken in the days following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Bottom: The same retail space on the ground level of One Liberty Plaza is now home to a Chopt Creative Salad Co. restaurant. The stairs and general architecture remain the same. Photographed on Sept. 4, 2026.Top: A closer look at the devastated former Brooks Brothers store, just a day after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, which was just across the street at the time. Bottom: The same steps and storefront photographed on Sept. 4, 2026.Top: Wreckage and debris looking west on Vesey Street from Church Street, between the former World Trade Center 5 building (left) and a federal office building housing a U.S. post office (right). Photographed on the morning of Sept. 12, 2001. Bottom: The same intersection looks vastly different 25 years later, with only the post office building remaining. Photographed on Sept. 4, 2026.Top: The 1982 sculpture “Double Check” by John Seward Johnson II in Zuccotti Park (named Liberty State Park at the time), became a makeshift memorial in the days after the terrorist attacks, as the park was just across the street from the former World Trade Center Plaza. Bottom: The sculpture has been moved several times in the years following the attacks and now sits on a bench at the corner of Liberty Street and Broadway, just across from Zuccotti Park. Photographed on Sept. 4, 2026.Top: Associated Press photographer Amy Sancetta pushes her bicycle on John Street, at the corner of Nassau Street, still covered in dust and debris a few days after Sept. 11, 2001. Bottom: The same intersection, just three blocks from where the twin towers once stood, 25 years later.Top: Police seal off Dey Street, just west of Broadway, one block from the former World Trade Center Plaza, five days after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Bottom: The same block 25 years later shows the Fulton Center transit and retail complex (left) which opened in 2014, and 195 Broadway (right), a skyscraper that opened in 1916. Photographed on Sept. 4, 2026.Top: An NYPD officer wearing a protective mask stands guard near the New York Stock Exchange in the financial district in the days following the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. Bottom: Similar view of the New York Stock Exchange, looking north on Broad Street, at Exchange Place, 25 years later. Photographed on Sept. 4, 2026.Top: The original St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church, the only house of worship destroyed in the terrorist attacks, sat just below the twin towers. The original structure was built in the 1830s as a private home and later purchased by Greek immigrants and converted into a church by the early 1900s. Bottom: Located in the same spot on Cedar Street, the new St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church and National Shrine was rebuilt in 2014 and completed in 2022. Photographed on Sept. 4, 2026.Top: The twin towers of the World Trade Center and the Manhattan skyline seen behind the Brooklyn Bridge on Sept. 8, 2001, just three days before the terrorist attacks. Bottom: The Manhattan skyline from a similar angle on Aug. 5, 2026, including One World Trade Center seen behind the Brooklyn Bridge.