The Beautiful Reason Roses Appear on Names at the 9/11 Memorial

If you've ever visited the 9/11 Memorial in New York City, you've surely noticed flowers sticking out of the engraved names of some of the victims. They’re brought by visiting loved ones, except for the white roses. Those are placed there by the National September 11 Memorial & Museum.

Every morning, a member of the museum's Visitor Services staff consults a document that contains the birthdays of all 2,983 victims in chronological order. They then take a single white rose for every victim whose birthday it happens to be that day, and leave them by their name on the bronze parapets.

The Florist Behind the Tradition

According to the museum's own website, this tradition began back in 2013 at the suggestion of an unnamed volunteer. For their supply, the museum turned to Michael Collarone, a florist based in the nearby Tribeca area. Collarone was present on the day of the attacks, responding as an emergency medical technician. Afterward, he donated wreaths to and helped maintain the first, temporary memorials at the site.

Six of the victims died on their birthday, including Pentagon employee Amelia Fields, Windows on the World cook Ivhan Luis Carpio Bautista, and law clerk AnnMaria Riccobini. Fields had only just started her job at the Pentagon when the attacks occurred; Bautista was off that day, but fell in for a co-worker, and Riccobini had just beaten cancer.

One of the reasons the museum places white roses at the memorial has to do with accessibility. As Collarone explained to the Washington Post, not everyone is able to visit the memorial to commemorate a victim: "We're there to stand in for the relatives who couldn't make it. We always have you."

Keeping the Tradition Alive

This was especially true for the year this Washington Post article was published: 2020. During the coronavirus pandemic, people couldn't easily leave their homes, let alone travel. Because New York’s flower market had temporarily shut down, Collarone had to procure a special shipment of roses from the Netherlands. Despite these challenges, the tradition continued uninterrupted, albeit with social distancing measures.

"It's about commitment to a cause, to a belief that even when times are tough, we will always remember these people and never forget," Collarone told the Washington Post, which wrote that—that particular year—the names of the victims were read through loudspeakers rather than on a stage.

Every day of the year marks the birthday of at least one victim. If family members are unable to travel to New York for the occasion, they can request a photograph of the white rose next to their relative's engraved name from the museum.

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