Welcome! The power of parks and their ability to inspire talking, learning and healing has always been important.

People come to this website and to parks across America because the parks, in all their variety, represent cherished special pieces of this nation's shared heritage.

The parks were set aside so that succeeding generations could experience these places in much the same way we have experienced them.

This site is a testament and an invitation to a memory that deserves the same kind of honor.

The message of September 11 is not only of loss. September 11 speaks of courage, determination and perseverance.

The National Park Service and our friends and partners, the National Park Foundation and Eastern National, welcome you to the explore the memories of our workers and visitors - and add your own.

These parks and their people, the rangers, gardeners, police, secretaries, and more, will always carry the memory of September 11. Our visitors, at parks both near and far have shared their ideas of why and how they value the parks and the people who serve them.

When a city and a nation needed to renew the memory and honor the legacy of Federal Hall, the site of the First Congress of the United States, of Ellis Island and Castle Clinton, which welcomed generations of immigrants to these shores under the watchful gaze of the Statue of Liberty herself, the parks and their staffs were ready and able.

When people sought to rebuild their faith in themselves and their nation in Yosemite, or Shenandoah, or Mount Rushmore, these parks, too, were ready - as they are today.

This site is dedicated to our pledge that the impact and meaning of September 11 will inspire thoughtful reflection. This site, like the landscapes and people it remembers, will change over time.

Reflect here on the lessons of September 11. Come again, often, both here and to the parks shown.

Sincerely,

Fran P. Mainella
Director