The full-scale aerial tribute honored each person killed in the Sept. 11 attacks ahead of the 25th anniversary.
NEW YORK, NY — Thousands of illuminated drones rose above New York Harbor on Sept. 9 and formed full-scale outlines of the Twin Towers, creating a temporary memorial for the 2,977 people killed in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
The public artwork, titled “2,977 Lights Over New York Harbor,” used exactly 2,977 drone lights, with each light representing one person who died in the attacks. The installation was staged two days before the 25th anniversary of 9/11 and was developed with input from victims’ relatives, survivors and first responders. Organizers described the project as a way to remember individual lives while showing the scale of the loss carried by families and communities for a quarter-century.
The drones first appeared as a rising, spiraling helix before moving into position to outline the towers in the night sky. Organizers said the final formation reproduced the Twin Towers at their original architectural scale and proportions, briefly returning their familiar outlines to the New York skyline. The formation appeared near the annual Tribute in Light, the two vertical beams that have become one of the city’s best-known symbols of remembrance for the attacks.
The installation was produced by creative director Addison Mehr and Sky Elements and sponsored by the New York Foundation for the Arts. Designer Yan Paul Dubbelman worked on the project, with artistic advisers including Drift, architect Shigeru Ban and architect Dean Maltz. Organizers said the creative process included members of the 9/11 community so the tribute would reflect the experiences of people directly affected by the attacks rather than functioning simply as a large-scale drone spectacle.
Among those who helped shape the project were FDNY first responder and artist Brenda Berkman, first responder Tim Brown, 9/11 Families United President Terry Strada, Jim Smith and Genevieve Siller. Their connections to the attacks include service at the World Trade Center and relatives who were killed on Sept. 11. Organizers said that involvement was central to decisions about how the towers would appear and how the 2,977 individual lights would be presented.
Mehr said the purpose of the installation was to recognize individual loss within the broader history of Sept. 11. Rather than treating 2,977 only as a casualty figure, the project assigned a separate point of light to every person killed in the attacks. The total represents victims at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and aboard the four hijacked planes, including United Airlines Flight 93, which crashed near Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
Sky Elements said producing the display required months of planning and coordination because of the highly restricted and complex airspace surrounding New York City. The company also had to preserve the exact number of drones while creating a formation large enough to reproduce the towers at architectural scale. That meant the design could not simply add more aircraft to increase visual detail. The number of lights was treated as a fixed part of the memorial itself.
The project also drew from earlier ideas about rebuilding and remembrance at the World Trade Center site. The opening helix formation was inspired in part by an unbuilt World Cultural Center proposal that envisioned open lattice structures at the site. The drones then shifted from that abstract shape into the recognizable outlines of the original towers, allowing the artwork to move from symbolism toward a direct visual reference to the skyline that existed before the attacks.
The drone installation was conceived to work alongside, rather than replace, the annual Tribute in Light. The traditional memorial uses two powerful beams projected upward near the former World Trade Center site. By placing thousands of separate points of light over the harbor while the beams were visible in Lower Manhattan, organizers created two different forms of remembrance: one representing the towers as a shared symbol and another emphasizing the individual people who died.
The Sept. 9 display came as New York and communities across the country prepared for the 25th anniversary ceremonies on Sept. 11. Families gathered at the National September 11 Memorial & Museum, where victims’ names were read aloud and moments of silence marked key times in the attacks. Other observances were held at the Pentagon and the Flight 93 National Memorial in Pennsylvania. The drone artwork was a temporary installation, but its 2,977 lights added a new visual element to the milestone anniversary’s commemorations.
Author note: Last updated September 13, 2026.