September 11, 2001: The Pictures We Remember

One decade after 9/11, an unsettling number of images from Ground Zero and environs remain seared in our collective memory -- unsurprising, perhaps, given the scope and scale of the destruction. But the fact that the deadliest, most visually arresting attacks occurred in New York City also meant that many of the world's best photographers were, in effect, already on the scene when the terrorists struck.

Here, to mark the tenth anniversary of 9/11, and in hopes of lending coherence to our shared, turbulent recollections, LIFE.com presents the 25 most stirring, visceral photographs from that day, featuring pictures from the likes of James Nachtwey, Joe Raedle, Spencer Platt, Mario Tama, and other celebrated photojournalists (and one intrepid amateur). These are the pictures we remember: wrenching, indelible photographs that tell the tale of a still-resonant late summer day that changed everything. Above: A photo taken on September 11, 2001 by the New York City Police Department as the North Tower collapses, engulfing lower Manhattan in smoke and ash.

The South Tower of the World Trade Center explodes in flames after being hit by the hijacked airliner now universally known as "the second plane," United Airlines Flight 175, September 11, 2001. This photo -- with its black smoke; the shocking, brilliant, colossal flames; the cloudless sky; the beautiful Brooklyn Bridge flying the American flag -- captures so much of the story of the day that, if one were to create a composite picture to illustrate the idea of "9/11," the result might look very much like this astonishing shot. (Photo: STR/Reuters /Landov)

A photo taken on September 11, 2001 by the New York City Police Department as the North Tower collapses, engulfing lower Manhattan in smoke and ash. (Photo: AP Photo/NYPD, Det. Greg Semendinger)

This image, made by Bergen Record photographer Thomas E. Franklin on the day of the attacks, eerily calls to mind one of American history's most iconic pictures: Joe Rosenthal's 1945 photograph of five Marines and a Navy corpsman raising the Stars and Stripes at Iwo Jima. (Photo: 2001 The Record (Bergen County, N.J.) Thomas E. Franklin)

Hijacked United Airlines Flight 175 from Boston crashes into the south tower of the World Trade Center and explodes at 9:03 a.m. on September 11, 2001 in New York City. The crash of two airliners hijacked by terrorists loyal to al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and subsequent collapse of the twin towers killed some 2,800 people. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

An unidentified New York City fireman walks away from Ground Zero after the collapse of the towers. Photographer Anthony Correia told LIFE.com of this picture: "He just looked so exhausted, so beat up." Correia knelt down and took his shot as the man walked by. "I acknowledged him, and he acknowledged me. But he never stopped." The steady gaze, meanwhile, of this lone firefighter allows us a window into the experience of literally thousands of rescue workers and first responders. I was in there, his eyes seem to say. Be thankful that you can't imagine what I saw. (Photo: Anthony Correia/Getty Images)

President George W. Bush was informed by his chief of staff Andrew Card of the attacks on the World Trade Center during a school reading event in Sarasota, Florida. Ten years later, one of the kids who was there in that class, Chantal Guerrero, told Time magazine that to this day she's grateful that Bush -- obviously profoundly upset about something that Card had told him -- maintained his composure and stayed with the students until the book they were reading...

Like a scene from an uneasy dream, Doug Kanter's picture of a man standing amid the seemingly endless World Trade Center rubble, calling out for survivors, brings to mind the sense so many of us shared on 9/11 and in the days and weeks after: What, in the face of such annihilation, can one person do?

This image (another by Stan Honda) is an exemplar of a strange, wrenching sight witnessed by innumerable people in New York on the morning of September 11: A survivor, layered in eerie, white dust, trudging away from the cataclysm. The man, Edward Fine, was an owner of an investment and public relations firm; he was on the 78th floor of 1 World Trade Center when it was hit. (STAN HONDA/AFP/Getty Images)

Jennifer S. Altman, a freelance photographer, took this picture of the towers ablaze, and far, far below them, one woman wearing an expression of pure horror. Five years later, Altman was invited to the home of the woman in red, Rose Parascandola, who had been working at an online-trading company on the 51st floor of WTC 1 on September 11. "She said that I really captured how she felt. She had seen it in the paper, and that it meant a lot to her." For Altman, it was a meaningful photo, as well...

Stunned, frightened Marcy Borders, 28, is covered in dust as she takes refuge in an office building after one of the World Trade Center towers collapsed. Borders was caught outside on the street as the cloud of smoke and dust enveloped the area, and raced into the building seeking shelter -- a building into which freelance photographer Stan Honda had also fled.

Running for cover (Photo: DOUG KANTER/AFP/Getty Images)

The north tower of New York's World Trade Center collapses after being struck by hijacked American Airlines Flt. 11, Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2001. (AP Photo Richard Drew)

In a scene repeated with terrifying frequency as flames engulfed the top of the towers, a man falls (or leaps, as was evidently the case with many victims) to his death from the World Trade Center. On the morning of September 11 photographer Richard Drew, in the midst of another assignment, got the call to drop everything and head to the World Trade Center.

Rescue workers carry mortally injured New York City Fire Department chaplain Mychal Judge from the wreckage after he was killed by falling debris while administering last rites to another victim. A Roman Catholic priest, a recovering alcoholic, a gay man, and -- as an FDNY chaplain a spiritual adviser and trusted friend to countless firefighters through the years -- "Father Mike" was the first recorded victim of the September 11 attacks.

A man covered in dust walks in the street near the site of the World Trade Center towers in New York City, in this file photo taken early September 11, 2001. This year's anniversary of the September 11 attacks in New York and Washington will echo the first one, with silence for the moments the planes struck and when the buildings fell, and the reading of 2,792 victims' names. (REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton-Files HB)

A rescue helicopter surveys damage to the Pentagon as firefighters battle flames after an airplane crashed into the U.S. military Headquarters outside of Washington in an apparent terrorist attack, September 11, 2001. (REUTERS/Larry Downing LSD/HB)

Lilliputian figures -- firefighters stark against the grayish white dust that blanketed so much of lower Manhattan -- walk a path cleared of rubble near the base of the destroyed south tower in the days after the attacks.

Hijacked United Airlines Flight 175 (L) flies toward the World Trade Center twin towers shortly before slamming into the south tower (L) as the north tower burns following an earlier attack by a hijacked airliner in New York City September 11, 2001. The stunning aerial assaults on the huge commercial complex where more than 40,000 people worked on an ordinary day were part of a coordinated attack aimed at the nation's financial heart.

On 9/11, the New York City Police Department lost 23 officers. The Port Authority police lost 37. The FDNY's dead numbered 343. Here, firefighter Tony James cries while attending the funeral service for New York Fire Department chaplain Mychal Judge at New York's St. Francis of Assisi Church, September 15, 2001. Photographer Joe Raedle, who attended and photographed funerals for weeks after September 11, told LIFE.com of this shot.