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The 9/11 memorial plaza is opening to the public for the first time since the September 11, 2001, terror attacks at the site that has been transformed into a memorial with two reflecting pools ringed by the chiseled-in-bronze names of the nearly 3,000 who died.

There’s a doubleness to listening to Jacqueline du Pre play Edward Elgar’s Cello Concerto. The music is powerful, beginning with vivid chords from the cello, which continues with a mournful, downward melody that is greeted by the winds. Jackie, as everyone called her, said she loved the piece because she “felt it had such a wide range of expression, it went from terrible pathos to ridiculous fun and amusement.”  

President Barack Obama read a psalm about refuge and strength and the names of the Sept. 11 dead echoed across a transformed ground zero Sunday as the nation and world marked 10 years since the worst terrorist attack on American soil.

The 9/11 attacks impacted the lives of thousands here in the city and beyond. To mark the 10th anniversary of the attacks, some people plan on focusing on the events that happened ten years ago, while others plan to treat it like any other Sunday. But most people said they would commemorate in their own way.

New Yorkers remained largely unfazed by the news that a credible, but uncorroborated terrorism threat had been made against the city to coincide with the 10th anniversary of the September 11 attacks — prompting heightened security around the five boroughs.

Mohsin Hamid was born in Pakistan but has spent about half his life in the US. In July 2001, he finished the first draft of his novel The Reluctant Fundamentalist, the story of a young global citizen named Changez. He’s a Princeton grad from Pakistan with a blue-chip job on Wall Street ...

On the morning of September 11, I was in midtown Manhattan, so I walked south – downtown.  There I encountered the wave of refugees walking north, people still wearing white breathing masks, people in suits covered head to toe in dust and soot. And finally, after an eight mile hike, I arrived home to my wife and kids Brooklyn, where our little backyard ...

New Yorkers remained largely unfazed by the news that a credible but uncorroborated terrorism threat had been made against the city to coincide with the 10th anniversary of the September 11 attacks — prompting heightened security around the five boroughs.

Maira Kalman has written and illustrated more than a dozen books, for children and adults. In the months following 9/11, when a friend suggested she write a book about the attacks, she said, “Absolutely not. I'm in the world of humor. This is a very sad story and it's very intense ...

Slideshow: Scenes from Maira Kalman’s Fireboat

In 1993 during the period of the AIDS crisis, my friend Tom Bogdan asked me to write a piece for him to sing. As I began working, I realized that this could be the requiem I had always wanted to write -- not with the Latin text, because I didn’t want it to be literally Christian, but a requiem nonetheless.

The New York Police Department honored the officers who died in the September 11, 2001, attack, or after working on the toxic pile of rubble. The department handed medals to families of 23 officers who died that day and the 49 officers and one civilian who died since.

If you're planning on driving to Lower Manhattan this weekend for the tenth anniversary of 9/11, don't. Or to use the language of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority: "Motorists are strongly cautioned to avoid driving in the area." Drivers will encounter tunnel closures, frozen zones and blocked streets throughout the weekend.

It sounds weird, but Beth Kronk and Jim Horch owe their relationship to the terrorist attacks of September 11. Beth and Jim met on a subway in the sad, chaotic week that followed.

The September 11 attacks destroyed 13 million square feet of office space in Lower Manhattan. That, and two recessions, led to a loss of 16,000 jobs south of Chambers Street, according to a report from the Alliance of Downtown New York. And yet the area has remained lively, as more and more people have chosen to make their homes there.

On a recent evening, 19 Latino immigrants who worked on the clean-up efforts at Ground Zero squeezed into the office of Queens-based psychotherapist Jaime Carcamo. He is a proponent of so-called exposure therapy, when patients describe in detail the memories that haunt them.

Richard Drew worked as a photographer for the Associated Press for 32 years before he took his most powerful image on Sept. 11, 2001. Drew has called "The Falling Man" “the most famous photograph no one has seen,” since many outlets refused to publish the photo in the wake of 9/11.

The Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, formed nearly 10 years ago to help that portion of the city recover from the 9/11 attacks, could be around for at least another three years, officials said.

New York City firefighters said they're disappointed the city isn't making room for them at this Sunday's ceremony honoring the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. The mayor's office said due to space constraints at the newly-opened Memorial Plaza, the priority is to accommodate victims' families, and that first responders can gather in neighboring Zuccotti Park.

In the process of archiving and digitizing analog tape loops from work I had done in 1982, I discovered some wonderful, sweeping pastoral pieces I had forgotten about. Beautiful, lush, cinematic, truly American pastoral landscapes swept before my ears and eyes. During the transfer process, as each of the loops played round and round on the tape deck, I soon realized the tape loops were disintegrating.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg is touting the progress being made at the new World Trade Center site after years of delays, political wrangling and design changes.