he annual reading of the names at Ground Zero concluded shortly before 1 p.m., four hours after it began.

New York City Mayor Eric Adams was among the mourners gathered at Ground Zero, along with New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, former Gov. George Pataki, New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy, and former Mayors Rudy Giuliani and Michael Bloomberg. FBI Director Kash Patel and Deputy Director Dan Bongino could also be seen in the crowd. 

Hochul directed more than a dozen state landmarks, including One World Trade Center and the Empire State Building, to be illuminated with blue lights Thursday in observance.

"Today I join the world in remembering the nearly 3,000 souls taken on 9/11, the people who went to work and never came home, and the brave heroes - uniformed and otherwise - who ran toward danger to save others," the governor said in a statement.

"Many of our enemies, foreign and domestic, thought we were going to collapse as a country, but we got up 9/12," Adams said before the ceremony. "Teachers taught, builders built. We showed the globe our resiliency, even in the midst of pain."

Adams' mayoral opponents, former Gov. Andrew Cuomo and state Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani, were also in attendance, while Republican Curtis Sliwa was scheduled to visit a different 9/11 tribute in the Rockaways.