Before the ceremony, Obama met with the firefighters of Engine 54, known as the "Pride of Midtown", which lost 15 men on September 11th, 2001.

Barack Obama, US President, said, "This is a symbolic site of the extraordinary sacrifice that was made on that terrible day almost 10 years ago. Obviously we can't bring back the friends that were lost, and I know that each and every one of you not only grieve for them, but have also over the last 10 years dealt with their family, their children, trying to give them comfort, trying to give them support.

President Obama also paid his respects at the First Precinct Police Station in lower Manhattan.

Visible progress in the roughly 11 billion US dollar project to rebuild the World Trade Center site is now finally being made after suffering delays from political, security and financing concerns.

Nearly 3,000 people were killed when al Qaeda hijackers crashed commercial planes into the Twin Towers, the Pentagon outside Washington, D.C., and a Pennsylvania field.