The Mesmerizing View Of The 9/11 Memorial Pools That Only A Janitor Gets To See
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If you’ve ever been to the 9/11 Memorial in New York City, then you know how breathtaking its two reflecting pools are.
Like an eternal, self-sustaining waterfall that is in the footprint of where both towers of the World Trade Center once stood, both the scale of the devastation and the honor owed to the 2,977 innocent victims and first responders who died on Sept. 11, 2001, can be felt.
Still, there’s an unseen element to the grandeur of the memorial, and that’s how it manages to consistently be pristinely clean.
That task, it turns out, is one of daily work, and it’s conducted with pride and dignity.
See The 9/11 Memorial In An All-New Way… As It Gets Cleaned
“I work at the 9/11 Memorial, and I’m a pool cleaner,” said James Maroon in 2021 film about how the 9/11 Memorial pools are maintained.
This look inside the reflecting pools of the 9/11 Memorial was filmed by Joshua Charow for the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks.
At that time, the 9/11 Memorial had only been open for 10 years, as it opened on the 10th anniversary of the attacks on Sept. 11, 2011.
Now, Charow has shared his short film, Inside the Nightly Cleaning of the 9/11 Memorial, as the nation looks back on the attacks after a quarter-century.
In it, we see the inner-walls of the reflecting pools like never before, including a look at its black marble floors, which are designed to seemingly be non-existent when viewed by spectators from above.
Speaking on his unique view, Maroon remembered his first shift cleaning the reflecting pools, which was about 13 or 14 years ago as of 2026, saying, “The first time I went in the pool … I was like, ‘Wow, this is just amazing to see how vast it really is.”
Monday through Friday, he and two other workers use vacuums and brushes to clean the pools from midnight to 8 a.m.
The goal, Maroon says, is to try to keep the 9/11 Memorial pools “as spectacular” as they can.
He added, “It’s a long eight hours, but it’s worth it.”
Continuing, Maroon then shares his own 9/11 experience, saying:
“I was here on 9/11. I worked at the New York Mercantile Exchange. I was walking through the building to get to my building when the first plane went right overhead. When I got to work, the next plane hit and the rest is history … Bad history, but we’re trying to make it better every day here.”
Maroon the shared what he often thinks of as he cleans the pools, and it’s an honest and dignified question: “Did I do this well?”
Expounding on that question, he said, “I don’t want to come out of that pool eight hours later and somebody saying, ‘Wow, that pool looks bad.’ Then I would feel bad, but, luckily, we do it well.”
He then admitted with a chuckle, “It gets dark in there sometimes. You lose yourself a little, but it’s pretty beautiful to see that sun come up over the wall. It’s something most people don’t get a chance to see.”
Watch the film about how the reflecting pools are maintained, and see the memorial like never before, here:
See more on the cleaning and upkeep of the 9/11 Memorial, including how scratches and vandalism are dealt with on the metal border of the pool that bears the names of each of the victims, here:
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