Relics from the Highest and Lowest Areas of World Trade Center’s South Tower

A pay telephone from the 107th floor South Tower Observation Deck and signal from the below ground PATH train station that were found in the wreckage at Ground Zero demonstrate the diversity of material recovered from all levels of the Twin Towers. These items will be on exhibit at the 9/11 Memorial Museum, opening this May.

Visitors to the Top of the World Observation Deck could place phone calls describing the panoramic views from more than a quarter mile above street level. The serial number on a pay phone recovered just south of Ground Zero identified it as one installed atop the South Tower.

Six stories below ground, approximately 42,000 commuters arrived at the World Trade Center PATH train station on a typical weekday morning. On 9/11, the station was safely evacuated. After the attacks, engineers entered the partially flooded PATH train tunnels to assess structural stability beneath the World Trade Center site. It would take five months, until substantial progress had been made clearing the site, before workers could remove the PATH commuter train cars that held passengers during the attacks.

By Margaret Barng, 9/11 Memorial Deputy Communications Manager