The World Trade Center 13 Years Later

For years after the 9/11 attacks, nearly all the activity at Ground Zero was downward—digging through the piles of debris, excavating a vast pit to restore the ruined transit lines, preparing the foundations for the new buildings that would emerge there. Even the memorial that opened in 2011 was an exercise in the poetics of descent—two vast cubic voids, each with water cascading down all four sides, carrying grief to some underground resting place.

The memorial has turned out to be a lovely thing, but what the site still needed was something that climbed, something that spoke to the idea that emotional burdens might not only be lowered into the ground but also released into the air. Now we have it: One World Trade Center, the glass-and-steel exclamation point, all 1,776 feet of it, is nearing completion close to where the Twin Towers once stood.

Time went above and beyond (literally) to capture this breathtaking view at 1776 feet from atop of One World Trade Center.

Check out the TIME GigaPan here: http://ti.me/1CyQ4kh

Today marks the 13th Anniversary of the September 11th attacks. Never forget those who lost their lives that day. United We Stand!