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Stories of veteran service and sacrifice straight from the people driving today’s most important veterans causes and veterans organizations around the world. The show shines a spotlight on their inspiring projects making a real difference for veterans and their families, and along the way we'll hear the stories that drive them to do their best every day as they work to support veterans and their memory.
00:00:06:02 - 00:00:32:10
Speaker 1
Hey, it's Matthew Cudmore and welcome to Story Behind the Stone, a show where we talk service, sacrifice and story connecting you with the individuals, changing the way that the world remembers. On today's episode, we are joined by Cliff Chanin, executive vice president and museum director with the National 9/11 Memorial Museum in New York City. Cliff oversees the growth of the museum's exhibitions, collections, education, and public programs, welcoming over 11 million visitors to the museum in 2025 alone.
00:00:32:11 - 00:00:54:13
Speaker 1
Previously, Cliff worked to the New York City Mayor's Office and at the Rockefeller Foundation, as well as founding the Legacy Project, a nonprofit dedicated to documenting how societies reckon with histories of conflict and mass violence. Having joined the initial planning team for the 9 11 Memorial Museum in 2005, he spent over two decades helping to curate, document and build the institution from the ground up.
00:00:54:14 - 00:01:11:11
Speaker 1
And today is executive vice president and museum director of the 9/11 Memorial Museum. He oversees the ongoing growth of its exhibitions, collections, and programs, ensuring that the artifacts, the human stories, and the enduring lessons of September 11th continue to inform and inspire audiences around the world. Cliff, welcome to the show.
00:01:11:12 - 00:01:13:02
Speaker 2
Thank you so much for having me.
00:01:13:03 - 00:01:32:16
Speaker 1
It's an honor and pleasure to speak with you in advance of the 25th anniversary of September the 11th. Cliff, your career. It spans journalism, city government, and key roles in landmark nonprofits. Can you share just a little bit about your journey and bring us back to 2005, when you join the initial planning team for the 9 11 museum in over 20 years ago?
00:01:32:17 - 00:01:58:12
Speaker 2
When I started here, it was really the beginning of the organization that we have since grown into. And there was a really small startup team because in those early days, it wasn't really clear what would happen here, whether the museum would be of this kind of scale, whether it would be smaller, even at some points where it would be located.
00:01:58:13 - 00:02:29:23
Speaker 2
The team was really just trying to get our bearings in terms of the scale of the story and how that could be translated into physical space. I had worked on a number of issues that had ultimately some relationship to what happened here in New York. My time at the Rockefeller Foundation, I had been a program officer, and I worked on issues regarding the Islamic revival around the world and traveled to many of the countries that were sort of looking at these issues and living them.
00:02:29:23 - 00:02:54:07
Speaker 2
I'd also done some work on, as you said, the cultural memory of mass violence in societies around the world, because I knew the person who was the initial president of the organization, she knew what I'd been working on. I was brought in just to sort of begin conversations around those particular questions and of course, many others, because, again, in those early days, it was pretty much catch as catch can.
00:02:54:08 - 00:03:06:21
Speaker 2
We didn't know what would come up when it would come up and sort of just getting the initial planning process in place was something we were essentially inventing in real time.
00:03:06:21 - 00:03:15:09
Speaker 1
And it was just four years after the events. And you mentioned that there were possible alternate locations. Can you tell us a little bit more about that?
00:03:15:10 - 00:03:46:10
Speaker 2
The memorial process began very soon after 9 11, and that was already underway by 2005. And ultimately, the museum development process was something that was on a parallel track, but not exactly at the same pace. And so the memorial development had a full throttle activity underway. From a very early time. There was the memorial competition, there was the selection of the winning design.
00:03:46:10 - 00:04:10:05
Speaker 2
And then, of course, the work begins physically, initially to clear the site and then, of course, to come up with plans for what would happen at the site, not just for the memorial and eventually museum, but also the commercial redevelopment of some parts of the original site. When the buildings collapsed, more than 10,000,000ft² of office and commercial space were lost.
00:04:10:05 - 00:04:35:18
Speaker 2
And that was something from an economic point of view, that was very important to bring back online for Lower Manhattan and for the economy of the city more generally. And so there were a lot of moving pieces in place at that time. And so we really had to figure out what the museum would be, where it would be, because there was some thought that maybe it shouldn't be on the site where it is now.
00:04:35:18 - 00:05:08:06
Speaker 2
Perhaps it should be in one of the larger buildings that was going to be constructed around the memorial complex. But eventually, of the original 16 acres of the World Trade Center site, roughly eight acres were dedicated to the memorial and ultimately the museum and the other eight acres were put back into commercial redevelopment to the north and to the east, and now eventually, with another building coming to the south of the original World Trade Center complex.
00:05:08:06 - 00:05:40:19
Speaker 2
And so the decision to first build the pools, the memorial pools in the original footprints of the towers that ultimately raised the possibility of putting the museum in the underground space below the pools, where, through a really interesting architectural decision, the volumes of the pools were projected down into the museum below ground. So in some way the buildings that are absent above ground are present below ground.
00:05:40:19 - 00:05:49:17
Speaker 2
And so the development of the museum site, above and below ground really followed the track of the memorial development.
00:05:49:19 - 00:06:06:00
Speaker 1
Thinking back to 2005. Did you ever think that you would see this impact that this memorial would have to do you imagine that you would be welcoming all of these millions of visitors? It's hard to think about just the generational impact that the events had and the sacred nature of that site. I think we.
00:06:06:00 - 00:06:30:23
Speaker 2
Were very well aware that this was an important story that needed to be told properly. And over the course of eight years in developing the museum narrative, in the content and the collections and so on, over those eight years, we began to think and focus on what we thought was the way to tell the story. I can't tell you that we anticipated what the museum would ultimately become.
00:06:30:23 - 00:06:58:07
Speaker 2
We knew we were building something on the site where things had happened. So there was what we described as the authenticity of place that was actually shaping many of the decisions that we made. We knew this was a global event. We knew how profoundly it had affected people around the world, not just in the United States, but I don't know that we translated that, particularly not in those early days into the scale that it would become.
00:06:58:07 - 00:07:23:11
Speaker 2
And the other thing to say is, and this, I think, is typical of museums more generally, not just our place, but certainly it applies to our place. You know, we had an idea of what we would be when we opened. But over the course of now, 12 plus years, the public has come. Millions of people have been here to the Memorial and Museum, 100 million or so in that time.
00:07:23:11 - 00:07:55:11
Speaker 2
And the demands that they bring to us, or the interests that they bring, really change how we see what our job is. And the growth of the museum, which we think has largely been in response to the demand of people for more. Somehow the initial story that we tell was something that was our starting point. But other audiences came and wanted more from us, and we realized that there were things we hadn't thought of that we needed to add to the museum program.
00:07:55:11 - 00:08:26:01
Speaker 2
So certainly, and this becomes even more important over time, the education programs of the museum, which were part of our original portfolio of programs, but they have grown far beyond anything that we could have imagined in those early days. The work we do with first responder, law enforcement, military intelligence, fire departments, all of these different agencies that are involved somehow in broader service to the country.
00:08:26:01 - 00:08:52:16
Speaker 2
So many of them came to us from really the earliest time before the museum was even open. They just wanted to visit. And of course, we encouraged that and we welcomed them here. But it became very clear to us that they were looking for something more. If they couldn't define what that more would be. And that became our job defining what they needed from us, because we knew what the story was, we knew what the materials were in the collection.
00:08:52:16 - 00:09:27:06
Speaker 2
We knew what we could tell them about themselves and their own mission that they didn't know. And so those programs have grown very, very dramatically over the years. So literally 60,000 of the folks who work in those various professions over the years have been part of our programs here at the museum or online. And so again and again and again, we can recognize that this story continues to strike a very deep chord, certainly with Americans, but with people around the world still to this day.
00:09:27:06 - 00:09:33:00
Speaker 2
And over the course of time, we've tried to figure out. Well, what more are they looking for and how can we give it to them?
00:09:33:01 - 00:09:44:06
Speaker 1
From your perspective as museum director, what feedback? Do you hear from victims families, from first responders, survivors about the impact that your exhibits and collections have had on their process?
00:09:44:06 - 00:10:05:21
Speaker 2
Well, for many of them, they've made donations to the collection. If something that reflects a loved one who was lost or their own service or something related to 9 11. And so I think there's a reassurance for them that something that is important to them is now incorporated into the historical record of the event, as that record is reflected in the museum's collections.
00:10:05:21 - 00:10:31:17
Speaker 2
So that's number one. I mean, I will say the relationships with these various stakeholder groups we call them have evolved over the course of time. In the early years, the challenge was trying to explain to people who were most directly affected by the event, what the process was to begin to develop a narrative and an institution. So think of it this way from one day to the next.
00:10:31:18 - 00:10:59:09
Speaker 2
You have suffered literally out of the blue, on that blue sky day, you have suffered the most devastating loss possible. Whether it's a child, a spouse, a parent. It's all this extraordinary transformational grief. And so from that grief, all of a sudden this event becomes somehow public property. That is to say, there's going to be a public institution that's going to tell this story.
00:10:59:10 - 00:11:20:11
Speaker 2
We had many, many, many meetings over the years with different groups and bringing them together so they could hear from one another just to try to lay out what the process would be. It didn't mean everybody would agree with us all the time. It didn't mean that all of our ideas were the right ones. We tested many of them with family and other groups.
00:11:20:11 - 00:11:51:21
Speaker 2
But the point is something that all of a sudden had become critically important. The most important thing for these families, all of a sudden, it was being transformed into an historical narrative. And over the course of time, over the course of a process that we developed, we called it the Conversation series, which met at least quarterly, bringing people together at first, sort of just talking about what a memorial museum could be, as it was demonstrated in other places.
00:11:51:21 - 00:12:12:01
Speaker 2
But then talking about the problems we were looking at in telling the story and giving them options as to how we might present one or the other of these stories and so on. And there were oftentimes heated conversations. But over the course of time, we did, I think, convince many people of the logic of what we were doing.
00:12:12:01 - 00:12:35:18
Speaker 2
Not everybody. And since the museum has opened, and now it's a 12 year train of events that have followed the level of, I would say, acceptance, comfort, you pick the word, but that the level of recognition that this has become a place that tells the story respectfully, both in terms of the historical narrative and the commemoration of the loved ones.
00:12:35:18 - 00:12:44:20
Speaker 2
I think that has grown in the in all of the affected communities. And in many ways, our relationships have gotten closer over the course of time.
00:12:45:01 - 00:13:00:13
Speaker 1
I believe you've had a major exhibit, The Stories They Tell, which you spent years working with, these artifacts and the museum's collection. Is there a particular object or exhibit or personal story within the museum, or in that collection or exhibit that has resonated with you?
00:13:00:13 - 00:13:19:07
Speaker 2
It's like asking a parent for their favorite child. The thing I will say is, I spend a lot of time in the museum, as you might imagine over the years, and this happens regularly, but not predictably. I will be in the museum and I will be looking at something that I've seen a hundred times or more before, and for some reason it strikes me afresh.
00:13:19:07 - 00:13:47:20
Speaker 2
And that part of the story, as represented by a particular object, all of a sudden jumps off the wall or jumps out of a case, or in the back of house in the museum where we're looking at objects before we put them on display. And so it varies in terms of my interaction with the objects. But I've come to expect that in the course of a day, even just walking through one of the galleries, I'll have a reaction that I haven't had before.
00:13:47:20 - 00:14:14:08
Speaker 2
And I think that's part of the power of the place. I think it's also part of why I have been here as long as I have, why I have found the work so compelling. There's nothing here that we do by rote, even telling the same story again and again and again. It is still something that has a freshness to it, if that's the right word, a power to it, an emotional valence to it that doesn't really go away.
00:14:14:08 - 00:14:17:09
Speaker 2
No matter how many times you encounter an object or tell a story.
00:14:17:10 - 00:14:21:15
Speaker 1
What do you remember from that morning? The dates of September 11th, 2001?
00:14:21:16 - 00:14:48:06
Speaker 2
Well, I am a pretty much lifetime New Yorker lifetime Brooklynite even. I lived in Manhattan for a couple of years for graduate school. But I don't know if you'll hold that against me, but, So I was home that morning. I lived just across the river, and I was, you know, I know the chronology obviously very well. And I know there is 17 minutes between the first strike on the North tower and the second strike on the South tower.
00:14:48:12 - 00:15:10:18
Speaker 2
And I still had trouble figuring out how I filled those 17 minutes, because it seemed like a lot happened in those 17 minutes. And the 17 minutes started with the first reports on the radio when I was sort of in the bathroom, shaving or brushing my teeth, getting ready to go out because I was going to drive a family member into Manhattan for a medical appointment.
00:15:10:22 - 00:15:41:23
Speaker 2
So somehow, from being in the house and hearing of the first attack, getting in the car, driving to the Brooklyn Bridge as we get to the Brooklyn Bridge to cross into Manhattan, we're listening to the radio and they're still trying to figure out what this is. A police car pulls in front of the bridge to block traffic going across, and I am the driver looking forward, but there are people standing on the sidewalk, obviously looking across the river where you could see what's going on in the towers.
00:15:41:23 - 00:16:04:05
Speaker 2
And so I'm there thinking, all right, I can't go this way, what am I going to do? And all of a sudden, I hear these shrieks from the street because the second plane has just hit the south tower. And so that, of course, was a moment where everybody realized this is much different than they had been thinking. We obviously went home.
00:16:04:05 - 00:16:29:16
Speaker 2
There was nothing really to do. The kids were in school, they were sort of escorted out. And I remember I think one of my strongest memories of the day was going out to meet them on their way home, and because the wind was blowing our way, the dust was coming our way. And I saw my three kids, you know, as initially these kind of shadowed figures and then coming out of the dust cloud.
00:16:29:16 - 00:16:47:08
Speaker 2
And that's where we met on the street. And I realized, you know, we are at war in some way. And my children are going to know this as a war time. I grew up a little bit during and after the Vietnam period, but we were not at war at home. And now all of a sudden, for my kids generation, we were.
00:16:47:10 - 00:16:56:23
Speaker 1
You've done two decades of your life to September the 11th. What does this work mean to you personally? And what does your family say about this longstanding work that you've done over your career?
00:16:57:00 - 00:17:22:19
Speaker 2
Well, I think they respected. I'm not sure they understand it. You know, there's a small group of us, and there are different memorial museums for terrorism that are in small numbers still, but have developed around the world. And we over time and me personally, we've been very involved just in dialog with them over time, because the things that we've done here are the things that they need to do in some form of their own in these different locations.
00:17:22:19 - 00:17:42:07
Speaker 2
So what I realized, we talk about this among the group, and it includes my colleagues here. But the people who do this are a very small number, and I don't think the world at large beyond us just understands quite what this work is, what it demands, and what it brings you. For example, people ask me all the time, you know, how do you work with museum?
00:17:42:07 - 00:18:06:10
Speaker 2
It's so sad. How do you do that? And there's certainly sadness in the story we tell. I would never deny that because it strikes me at various times, as I said in one through museum. But this is a museum that tells this story, which over the time I've come to understand is the story of human existence. There is every aspect of humanity in the story that we tell.
00:18:06:11 - 00:18:40:18
Speaker 2
There's extraordinary heroism, there is loss, there is anger, there is grief. There is even happiness in in different aspects, the story, everything that it is to be a human being can be found in this story. So when our visitors come here expecting whatever it is, they're expecting so many of them and they've written comments, TripAdvisor and elsewhere, or they tell us so many of them find it a much deeper, a more profound, I would say, enriching experience than they had anticipated.
00:18:40:18 - 00:19:08:04
Speaker 2
And the reason for that is because the story is fundamentally a human story, and it touches that deepest chord in each of us as human beings. You don't get that kind of experience in a lot of places. Certainly if you go to a house of worship, that is what that is about, of course. But in terms of secular life and the interactions we have on a daily basis, that's not what's really happening for you.
00:19:08:04 - 00:19:43:14
Speaker 2
So come to this museum, and the breadth and the depth of the story is the most striking thing. And so for me personally, I've come to recognize that to whatever I've given to this project over the years and over 20 years, it's significant. I have gotten back much more than I've given. It is just an extraordinary experience to meet the people I've met, to hear the stories that I've heard, to transmit those stories, whether to the general public or in the case of let's take the FDNY, the fire department in New York.
00:19:43:14 - 00:20:08:11
Speaker 2
One of the programs we developed, I alluded to earlier is for the fire department itself. And we've had the privilege, thanks to the fire department, of being the institution that has been allowed to tell the story of 9 11 to the incoming classes of probationary firefighters at the FDNY Academy. Now, the fire department is a very traditional, closely held organization.
00:20:08:11 - 00:20:34:03
Speaker 2
So the fact that they let us do that really speaks deeply to the trust they put in us, the trust we try to reciprocate by bringing the younger members into the narrative, which, when you come right down to it, is telling these young people, this is the service that was demanded now 25 years ago. No one who went to work that morning at any firehouse in the city understood what was going to be happening.
00:20:34:05 - 00:21:11:09
Speaker 2
All of them came to respond. All of them took their assignments and went up into that building. In many cases knowing or fearing that they would not come down. And the stories we tell involve firefighters in the lobby of the North Tower, for example, shaking one another's hands and saying goodbye to one another that morning. And somehow we have become the institution that tells this story to these young firefighters, and the implicit obligation for all of them who take exactly the same oath and make the same commitment, is that this may be or something like it may be, their job on any given day.
00:21:11:09 - 00:21:34:15
Speaker 2
And the expectation is and they will fulfill this expectation that they will respond as their predecessors did. If you'd have asked me in 2010 or 2012, or whenever would we be doing this, I couldn't even have imagined it. And yet, I think because over time you get to see what the depth of the story is. You get to see what the essence of the story is.
00:21:34:16 - 00:21:53:20
Speaker 2
We are in many ways storytellers working in this museum, and we have been able to tell these stories, whether it's for the FDNY, we do the same kind of program for the NYPD, the Port Authority Police Department, the EMTs, training programs. I mean, on and on and on. There's a long list of organizations we do this for.
00:21:53:21 - 00:22:05:14
Speaker 1
As we look toward the future of the memorial and the museum, especially as we approach the 25th anniversary here in 2026. How do you see the physical and the educational footprint of the institution continuing to evolve?
00:22:05:15 - 00:22:30:18
Speaker 2
Well, you know, we talk about our mission being commemorative and educational, right? And we want to inspire people in many ways to make choices towards serving others. But over the course of time, in my mind, anyway, the commemorative mission and the educational mission have kind of merged because over 25 years it's now more than 100 million Americans, maybe a third of the population of this country wasn't even born when 9 11 happened.
00:22:30:18 - 00:23:00:02
Speaker 2
So in a certain sense, our audience is bigger than it's been in previous years, and it's a form of commemoration to tell these kids this story because it's a formative story in American history, certainly in the history of the city of New York and in global history, because everything that followed from it. And so we've given more and more emphasis to our education programs, which also, by the way, increasingly includes teacher training programs, because guess what?
00:23:00:03 - 00:23:28:12
Speaker 2
Not only are there kids in some classrooms too young to remember 911 now the teachers are too young to remember 911 in increasingly numerous cases. So we are very focused on spreading the message each year. The sort of highlight of our many education programs is our anniversary program. It's called the Digital Learning Experience. It brings the 9 11 story into classrooms across the country and really around the world.
00:23:28:12 - 00:23:53:19
Speaker 2
We make a new film each year, which is based on first person accounts of 9 11, somehow thematically linked. We distribute that to a very broad network of educators who get a chance to prescribe it so they know what they're showing to their kids. And then on the day this is shown in classrooms and libraries and community centers, and our staff over the course of six hours does a live chat with kids who just send in their questions.
00:23:53:19 - 00:24:16:16
Speaker 2
And last year we had a million students participate in this program. And so, you know, anybody who wants to take this program don't have to be in a classroom. Individuals do it. You go to our website, 9 11 Memorial and you go to the learn section. You will find the link that lets you register for the digital learning experience, the DLI.
00:24:16:16 - 00:24:37:07
Speaker 2
And so as I say, it's a milestone year. It's 25th anniversary. We would expect that our numbers are going to be even in excess of what we had for the 20th anniversary, which was more than a million people as well. So this is something that is a shared experience that brings people together. It really is the capstone of our educational efforts through the year.
00:24:37:07 - 00:24:42:10
Speaker 1
What are the most effective ways that listeners can support and learn and get involved?
00:24:42:10 - 00:25:01:10
Speaker 2
We would love people to come to the museum. There is really nothing like it and you are most welcome here. We have a way for people to support our efforts. We created something called the Never Forget Fund and people, if they want to direct their generosity towards us, can go to never forget and they can contribute to us.
00:25:01:10 - 00:25:23:00
Speaker 2
You can also, even if you're not living locally, you can become a member of the museum, which gives you advance notice of the many programs that we do, many of which are online, but which is also a way for people to support us. So the Never Forget fund is really oriented towards the anniversary, certainly for the 25th. I think the message of never forgetting is particularly salient.
00:25:23:01 - 00:25:36:11
Speaker 1
I could not agree more. Executive vice president and Museum director of the 9/11 Memorial Museum. I want to thank you so much for the work that you and your team are doing every single day to commemorate this important site for the world. Thank you so much for chatting with me today.
00:25:36:11 - 00:25:44:00
Speaker 2
Thanks, Matthew. I appreciate your time.
00:25:44:02 - 00:25:57:02
Speaker 1
Thanks so much for tuning in. Story. Behind the Stone is available on Apple Podcasts, on Spotify, and on the Wreaths Across America Radio Network on iHeartRadio. Audacity and tune in to search for wreath.
00:25:57:04 - 00:25:58:05
Speaker 1
Thank you for tuning in.