At 8:48 a.m., 14 years and two minutes after a plane crashed into the north tower of the World Trade Center, the recitation of the names began.

A crowd of hundreds gathered on Friday, assembling under a canopy of swamp white oak trees in the plaza between where the twin towers once stood, coming out for what has become a rite of remembrance each year — a reading of the victims’ names.

The turnout this year was noticeably smaller than in years past. Fourteen does not carry the weight of being a milestone, like 10 years, or 25. But for those who convened on an overcast morning — most of them family members of the 2,977 people who were killed on that day in 2001 — it was critical for them to be there.

They vowed to never forget their loved ones and the way they died, and this event was an expression of that.

“Some parts of it feel like it was yesterday, and some parts feel like it was so long ago,” said Denise Matuza, whose husband was killed.

“It’s peaceful for us,” said Ms. Matuza, who has come every year from Staten Island with her two sons for the event. “It’s not stressful for us. This is where we find peace.”

Her son, Walter, 23, who shares a first name with his father, who was 39 when he died, added, “It helps us find sanctuary in each other.”

Many in the crowd carried a sign or memento memorializing their loved one. Some clutched framed photographs close to their chests, or wore T-shirts emblazoned with their relative’s face.

Posters bobbed above the crowd — some elaborately designed with images of the towers and the American flag, and others looked more homemade, like the one declaring in glittery block letters, “We love you! We miss you!”

The event, simple and subtle, stood in stark contrast to the traumatic tragedy it commemorates. Each of the readers — mothers, fathers, siblings, daughters, uncles, cousins, nephews — ended their turn by reading the name of their loved one, allowing them to finish with a personalized note:

“We’re just empty without you,” said one.

“He taught me so much about love and kindness every day,” said another.

“I know you’re watching over me,” said a boy who was just 3 months old when his father was killed. “We miss you like crazy.”

The event, in numerous ways, also served as a kind of case study in grief and the passage of time.

Some recalled a time when the crowds could be counted in the thousands, and years when the event was held in a dusty pit. Carole DiFranco, whose son was on the 100th floor of the north tower, remembered one year when the wind whipped through, blowing up dust and dirt.

“It was so eerie,” she said, “like God had gotten mad.”

The site that had once been like a gaping wound, a kind of metaphor for how the city and nation felt, has by now been sutured, with a gleaming tower, the new 1 World Trade Center, looming over the plaza.

Mr. Matuza could not help but be troubled by seeing the area — with its reflecting pools in the footprints of the towers and the museum — become a tourist attraction. He worried that it was becoming less a place to mourn and more a place to learn about and remember a piece of history.

“They remember it like they remember Pearl Harbor,” he said.

But even after 14 years, many of those who went were not ready to let go.

“If this goes away, people are going to forget,” Ms. DiFranco said, “and it’s going to happen again.”

Tom Acquaviva, whose 29-year-old son, Paul, was killed, said that his remains were never recovered. “This is his burial ground — his cemetery — and we treat it as such,” said Mr. Acquaviva, 81, who wore a placard with a photograph of his son around his neck.

“This is where everything happened,” he said. “My son had a bright future, and this is where it all ended.”

His wife, Josephine, teared up.

“I feel a great sense of closeness,” she said of the event.

“Not closure,” her husband added. “There is no closure. The only closure you get, as far as I’m concerned, is when you die.”