Introduction
Overview
9/11 in CUNY Archives is a guide to the archival materials across CUNY campuses and repositories that pertain to the attacks on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. This guide is organized by repository and contains descriptions based on finding aids and metadata as well as hyperlinks to digitized materials where available. The collections, curated by the author in consultation with archivists across the CUNY system, include materials created by students – newspapers and yearbooks – as well as correspondence, news clippings, legislative documentation, photographs, oral histories, videos, and artifacts from first responders and memorials.
Authors and Audience
This guide was researched and authored by associate archivist Lindsey Kratochwill, as part of the CUNY Cultivating Archives and Institutional Memory Project, an initiative administered by CUNY’s Office of Library Services to explore, unify and increase awareness of CUNY’s vast archival collections. The guide is one of several projects aimed at increasing awareness of research materials that provide context to people, events, and ideas that have shaped CUNY’s past, present, and future.
The purpose of this guide is to aid researchers in locating materials relating to 9/11 across CUNY archives and repositories, and it may be updated as more materials are accessioned, processed, or discovered.
Historical Context
In 2026, New Yorkers and CUNY commemorate the 25th anniversary of the attacks of September 11th. That day in 2001, two hijacked planes hit the World Trade Center’s Twin Towers, killing nearly 2,800 people[1]. In the immediate aftermath, first responders around the city came together to rescue survivors, recover victims, and help clean up the wreckage.
The CUNY community lost faculty, staff, and alumni in the attacks, and each campus experienced and memorialized the events of that day in their own ways. One campus was particularly close to Ground Zero: Borough of Manhattan Community College (BMCC). BMCC is less than half a mile north of the World Trade Center site. With that proximity, the campus became a hub for first responders, providing food and water, medical supplies, and support. BMCC also sustained damage from the attacks, when debris from the collapse of 7 World Trade Center fell on the college's Fiterman Hall building – a significant part of the campus. When students returned to classes a month later, they did so in makeshift classrooms, now with a third of the campus inaccessible for use[2]. The Fiterman building wouldn’t re-open for more than a decade[3].
Across the river in Brooklyn, the New York City College of Technology (City Tech) campus became a safe haven for those who had fled Manhattan by walking across the Brooklyn Bridge. The City Tech community offered people food, water, access to cell phones, and first aid[4].
Across the bay from Brooklyn, Staten Islanders, many of whom work as police officers and firefighters, were memorializing and documenting the effects of the tragedy. The College of Staten Island began work collecting, documenting, and preserving these records from the college and the local community[5].
The events of that day have also had long lasting effects on colleges across CUNY. In particular, John Jay College, which lost 67 faculty members, students, and alumni[6] in the attacks, was deeply impacted. Months after 9/11 in January 2002, the college hosted a conference of experts in conjunction with FEMA to “discuss and analyze the dangers New York City and other urban areas face from the growing threats of terrorism and other catastrophic disasters.” [7] In the time after, the college developed degree programs and research centers devoted to subject areas such as terrorism and emergency response.
At CUNY campuses across the five boroughs, archives and special collections steward archival materials including photos, documents, audiovisual materials, and other records depicting the aftermath of 9/11, preserving evidence of how students and faculty, New York, and the rest of the world processed the attacks. Student-created materials offer insight into how young people processed this moment in classrooms, in student publications, and in more informal and visceral ways, such as Hunter College’s Healing Walls project. Special Collections like LaGuardia & Wagner’s Queens/Local History collection and College of Staten Island’s Documentation Project also offer perspectives from local communities with artifacts like boots worn by a first responder and materials from memorials. Collections such as City College’s United Nations materials broaden the scope further and offer an international perspective through UN correspondence and official reports. Finally, photographs, videos, and oral histories held across campuses provide aural and visual documentation of the immediate and longer-term aftermath.
The following CUNY archives are referenced:
Baruch College’s Special Collections and Archives
Borough of Manhattan Community College Archives
Brooklyn College Archives
CDHA: CUNY Digital History Archive
City College Archives and Special Collections
College of Staten Island Archives & Special Collections
Hunter College Archives & Special Collections
John Jay College Special Collections
Kingsborough Community College Archives
LaGuardia Community College Institutional Archives
LaGuardia Community College La Guardia and Wagner Archives
Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY Archives
Queens College Special Collections and Archives
Notes
World Trade Center Investigation. National Institute of Standards and Technology. (n.d.). https://www.nist.gov/world-trade-center-investigation↑
Commemoration of Fiterman Draws More Than 500. Borough of Manhattan Community College. (2008, September 10). https://www.bmcc.cuny.edu/news/commemoration-of-fiterman-draws-more-than-500/↑
CUNY community recalls emotional and physical toll of 9/11. (2009, September 9). The City University of New York. Retrieved September 7, 2026, from https://www.cuny.edu/news/cuny-community-recalls-emotional-and-physical-toll-of-9-11/. ↑
CUNY community recalls emotional and physical toll of 9/11. (2009, September 9). The City University of New York. Retrieved September 7, 2026, from https://www.cuny.edu/news/cuny-community-recalls-emotional-and-physical-toll-of-9-11/. ↑
CSI Library at CUNY College of Staten Island Library. (n.d.). 9/11 documentation project. Archives & Special Collections . https://library.csi.cuny.edu/archives/9-11↑
John Jay College. (n.d.). 9/11 Memorial. https://web.archive.org/web/20221005064414/http://johnjay.jjay.cuny.edu/911memorial/2021/index.html↑
Capeci, J. (2002, February). John Jay and FEMA Address Urban Hazards. CUNY Matters. https://www1.cuny.edu/events/cunymatters/2002_february/hazards.html↑