the site of what was the World Trade Center till Sept. 11, when two hijacked planes crashed into the complex and reduced it to rubble.
At a solemn ceremony to mark the end of the clean up operation, four sets of five rings in memory of 343 fallen fire-fighters reverberated throughout what is now known as Ground Zero.
The first bell rang at precisely 10:29 a.m. local time, the time that the second tower collapsed in a screech of twisting steel and falling concrete Sept. 11, eye-witnesses said.
There was also two minutes of silence at the New York stock exchange, where many traders have lost colleagues and loved ones in the Sept. 11 attacks.
"It’s hard to remember on 9/11 with all of the twisted steel and concrete …,” said New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg who also attended the ceremony at Ground Zero.
FUTURE
"But the fact of the matter is the people that survived are the ones that we have to go on. We have to make sure they do not forget and that they build for the future,” he told the NBC’s Today show.
However a discussion was expected on whether the World Trade Center should be rebuild in some form or whether the site should become a permanent memorial in memory of the thousands of victims.
Monica Iken, who lost her husband in the attack, told the Cable News Network that she loved to see a place "where to grieve and where to go."
FRUSTRATION
Those who worked between the twisted steel and rubble expressed frustration that of the more than 2,800 people killed in the terrorist attacks, only the remains of 1,102 have been identified. 20,000 body parts were recovered.
At the ceremony, an empty, flag-draped stretcher symbolized the missing was carried from the pit where workers labored around the clock. The stretcher was loaded into an ambulance as a dozen pall-bearers saluted.
As the ambulance and a truck carrying the last beam from the site drove up the ramp, only the wind and the rumble of vehicles was audible at times, reporters noted.
Among the thousands attending the ceremony were also non-Americans. And people wearing t-shirts with "God Bless America." A photographer who pictured the rescue operations discovered a burned out bible page between the personal items of victims. It was Genesis 11, about the Tower of Babel.
