9/11 Memorial and Museum Tickets and Tours

Ground Zero and the 9/11 Memorial are two visits that are awe-inspiring, but provide a context for New York's recent history that will change your view of the event that shocked the world by exploring its social and political consequences in greater depth.

In memory of the 9/11 attacks, today you can visit the 9/11 Museum, the Memorial, Ground Zero and the World Trade Center. I tell you how to visit the 9/11 Memorial and the 9/11 Museum.

Queue-free entry

New York 9/11 Memorial and National Museum Tickets

Skip the queues when entering the 9/11 Museum

The most convenient and economical way to access the 9/11 Museum is to purchase these tickets online and in advance.

From $37 at Hellotickets

One thing you should know before going to Ground Zero is that the 9/11 Memorial and the 9/11 Museum are different things. The Memorial is a memorial located on the foundations that used to occupy the Twin Towers, and the 9/11 Museum is a subway facility below Ground Zero that houses an exhibit about the 9/11 attacks and their aftermath.

To visit the 9/11 Museum, you only need to purchase this ticket. When booking your tickets to the National 9/11 Memorial and Museum, you will need to select a time slot in which to visit the Museum. The average time of the visit is two and a half hours.

With the Museum's app, in addition to accessing interactive parts of the exhibition that you can not see otherwise, you can listen to a complete audio guide in Spanish so you do not miss anything.

Recommended if... you want to know in depth the events of 9/11 that marked the history of the United States and the world. With this combined ticket you won't have to worry about anything and focus on the experience.

With this ticket to the National 9/11 Memorial and Museum you will be able to visit both the outdoor grounds, which is now the Memorial, and access the 9/11 Museum. What used to be the World Trade Center is now a park of oak trees in the center of which are the twin fountains that make up the 9/11 Memorial. In tribute to the victims of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the names of the people who lost their lives that day are engraved on the outer edges of the fountains.

The fountains and the names of the victims are illuminated at night, giving the place a special atmosphere. If you book your tickets for the 9/11 Museum and Memorial, you can get an in-depth look at the details of what happened on that day.

Afterwards, you can complete your tour by visiting the National 9/11 Museum at your leisure and spending as much time as you like. If instead you prefer to do it with an expert guide to help you contextualize everything you see, I recommend this tour of the 9/11 Memorial and Ground Zero.

To get to Ground Zero, located at 180 Greenwich Street, I recommend taking the subway to the World Trade Center train station, or going to the Chambers Street station.

Remember that admission to the 9/11 Memorial and National 9/11 Museum is included in the main tourist passes in the city:

• New York Pass.
• New York CityPASS®.
• Go City: New York City Explorer Pass.
• New York City Sightseeing Flex Pass.
• New York Sightseeing Day Pass.

If you purchase one of these passes, you will have access to the museum, although you will not have the depth of commentary from a local guide that you will have if you take a tour of the 9/11 Memorial and Ground Zero.

You can also purchase this combo tour of the National Museum and 9/11 Memorial with admission to One World Observatory, which allows you to go up to the best observatory in the area for the most breathtaking views of the Financial District and lower Manhattan.

With a ticket to the National 9/11 Memorial and Museum you will take the following tour:

• You will enter the 9/11 Museum through a pavilion located in the Memorial.
• You will descend into the subway facility where the first thing you will see is Virgil's quote, "No day shall erase you from the memory of time " in the room known as Memorial Hall.
• As you proceed through the space beneath the World Trade Center, you will pass into Foundation Hall, the Museum's main hall, whose most prominent feature is the "Last Column. It was the last piece of the building to be removed in the Twin Towers rubble removal effort, and is covered with inscriptions and signatures of those who participated in the Ground Zero recovery effort.

If you reserve your ticket for the National 9/11 Memorial and Museum you will have access to the two main exhibits:

• In Memoriam, which pays tribute to the victims of the 2001 terrorist attacks and those of the 1993 attack that also took place at the World Trade Center.
• September 11, 2001, a minute-by-minute chronology of what happened that day and a reflection on how the world we live in today has been shaped by the attacks on the Twin Towers.

Throughout the museum, you will find a collection of 60,000 objects salvaged from the rubble of the Twin Towers, through which the story of 9/11 is told from various perspectives, including first-person accounts, documents, and belongings.

In order to enjoy your ticket to the National 9/11 Memorial and Museum, you should know that they are open every day of the year (except on September 11, when they are closed to the public for a memorial service for the victims). The 9/11 Memorial and 9/11 Museum hours on Fridays and Saturdays are 9am to 9pm (last admission at 7pm), while Thursday through Sunday they are open 9am to 8pm (last admission at 6pm).

I recommend you visit the Museum at opening time to experience the solemnity and intimacy of the exhibit. If there is one thing to criticize about the Museum, it is that its minimalism and the atmosphere it tries to create are not entirely compatible with the tourist crowds.

It will be hard for me to forget that Tuesday in September when, having returned home from school with my brother, we turned on the television as usual to play the video game console, but never got around to changing the channel: we were absorbed in watching the images of the Twin Towers collapsing in a cloud of black smoke, which the news repeated over and over again.

We had not long returned to Madrid after living in New York for nearly seven years, so those images were coming from the place we still considered home.

Chances are, if you are reading this, you have a story to tell about 9/11 as well. If you weren't in New York, you were most likely caught at home watching the news in complete shock like I was. If you lived in New York, your story will be very different, and it is precisely this story that is told at the 9/11 Memorial and Museum in New York.

Being in the middle of the Financial District, there aren't too many restaurants in the 9/11 Memorial and Museum area, but there are a couple of worthwhile places:

Speaking of The Oculus, I recommend that you stop by during your visit to the World Observatory. It is a building with a very particular design that houses the World Trade Center train station and a shopping mall where you will find stores, restaurants and cafes.

If you love photography or are looking for the best photos for your Instagram, it's the perfect place to add to your list of New York must-sees. The Oculus is open from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Saturday and 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Sundays.

If you want to expand your knowledge about the history, culture and the most interesting places in New York, I recommend you to take three of its most outstanding tours: Harlem, Contrasts and Upper and Lower Manhattan.

Here are the practical guides I have written for each of them in case you are interested in taking a look at them before organizing your visit: Contrasts Tours in New York, Upper and Lower Manhattan Tours in New York y How to attend to a Gospel Mass in Harlem, New York City.