The number of victims of the terrorist attack was close to 3000. The World Trade Centre site was referred to as Ground Zero.
The ceremony was guarded by the New York Fire Department, NYPD and MTAPD. Employees of these departments were the first to arrive at the site of tragedy to search for the missing and dead. Later, they were involved in the elimination of the consequences of the terrorist attack.
Every year at dusk on the anniversary of the September 11 you can see lit two beams of light directed upward and resembling two towers.
The head of FIDE, remembering the victims of the tragedy, expressed his sympathy for the relatives and friends of those who died in the monstrous terrorist attack and told us about his idea to build a chess centre on the site of the Twin Towers.
In 2010, Kirsan Ilyumzhinov asked the Mayor of New York, Michael Bloomberg, to let him buy the land, on which the Islamic community planned to build a mosque, and to build a World Chess Centre on the site instead.
"I sent a letter to the Mayor of New York Mr Bloomberg with a proposal to buy this piece of land for $10 million and build a World Chess Centre on this site," FIDE President said.
According to Ilyumzhinov, the decision of the Muslim community to erect a mosque on the site of the largest terrorist act in the history of the US" caused great controversy and even split in American society." Uniting people around "such a great game as chess," on the contrary, could unite people and help to prevent conflicts based on religious and national grounds, he assured.
Kirsan Ilyumzhinov stressed that his initiative was supported by all members of the FIDE Presidential Board. According to FIDE head, "We planned to build the World Chess Centre in the form of a King Chess Piece made of glass and concrete, which would certainly adorn the New York City."