Twenty-five years after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, the country is remembering the nearly 3,000 lives lost in a day that permanently shaped the national landscape.
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Several memorials in the Triangle and across the state are home to remnants of the fallen World Trade Center. Here are some of them.
At the corner of Salem and Saunders streets in downtown Apex, a memorial pays tribute to “those who serve to provide safety and protect our freedoms, both at home and abroad,” according to the town’s website.
Ahead of the memorial’s construction in 2013, Apex received a 6-inch cube of a metal beam recovered from the rubble of the South Tower. It now sits on top of the 5-foot granite memorial, which honors different first responders and service members, including the personnel who responded to the Sept. 11 attacks.
The memorial stands at the nexus of multiple converging brick paths, with each brick inscribed in memory of public safety workers or veterans.
Erected by the Chatham County 9/11 First Responder Memorial Foundation, this memorial is dedicated to all first responders. But in a nod to those who responded to the Sept. 11 attacks, the memorial features a tall, steel beam that was recovered from the North Tower.
It leans at an angle of 9 degrees and 11 minutes, pointed north toward Ground Zero in New York City where the tower fell 25 years ago. The memorial is located on the east side of the Chatham County Justice Center on Sanford Road.
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A memorial in downtown Greensboro pays homage to the lives lost on Sept. 11 with a sculpture featuring steel beams from the World Trade Center.
The base of the sculpture is shaped like the Pentagon, honoring the nearly 184 lives that were lost at the U.S. military headquarters that day. The two steel beams rise above the sculpture and connect at the top to a gate. One side of the gate cascades into 50 paper-shaped pieces of metal fluttering to the ground.
The memorial was constructed from 16 tons of steel collected from the rubble of the Twin Towers, according to the city’s website. The sculpture is located on South Elm Street in Greensboro.
A steel section from Tower One of the World Trade Center sits outside Duke Centennial Hall at UNC Charlotte, paying homage to the lives lost.
The segment is 6,200 pounds, originally from the 10th floor of the building which supported the transmission tower, according to a plaque at the base of the memorial.
The memorial was dedicated on the five-year anniversary of the attacks, on Sept. 11, 2006, according to the university’s website.
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This story was originally published September 10, 2026 at 5:06 PM.