16-Year-Old Researcher in Istanbul Builds an Open-Access Archive on the World Trade Center and September 11
ISTANBUL, Türkiye — Kaan Karataş, a 16-year-old independent researcher from Istanbul, has published the World Trade Center Archive: History, Architecture, Life and September 11, an open-access collection that documents the history of the Twin Towers, their architecture, the life around them, and the events of September 11, 2001. Karataş began the project in 2024 after watching footage of the attacks for the first time.
What started as personal notes grew into a 266-page first draft and then into a structured archive based on sources such as NIST, the FBI and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. The archive includes first-person testimonies from 9/11 survivors Michael Hingson, who escaped from the 78th floor of the North Tower, and Janice Brooks, who escaped from the 84th floor of the South Tower, as well as historian Professor Robert W. Snyder. The testimonies are included in their own words, without any changes. "I know I cannot change what happened that day. But I can remember it and help other people remember those who died that day." — Kaan Karataş
When a relative suggested that he sell his work, Karataş refused. "9/11 was not something to sell," he writes in his personal essay about the project, Something More. "It was something more." The archive is freely available on Zenodo, an open research repository operated by CERN, and is currently in the process of being donated to Columbia University's oral history archives in New York. Karataş is open about his use of AI tools, which helped him with research, fact-checking, writing and translation.
He set one firm rule: AI was never allowed to change the words of the survivors. "Use AI not as a tool that does everything for you," he advises other young researchers, "but as a tool to help you improve yourself." Karataş hopes the archive will one day reach the families of victims and survivors. "They had dreams, plans, and people who loved them," he writes. "They deserved to come home that day." ABOUT KAAN KARATAŞ Kaan Karataş is a high school student and independent researcher based in Istanbul, Türkiye. Alongside the World Trade Center Archive, he has written a working paper on the Turkish Parliament's 10 October 2001 debate on military authorization after 9/11 (DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.24045079).
