With the new One World Trade Center building in the background, second left, a large, jubilant crowd reacts to the news of Osama bin Laden’s death at the corner of Church and Vesey Streets, adjacent to Ground Zero, during the early morning hours of Monday in New York. (JASON DECROW/The Associated Press)

The site at which almost 3,000 people died at the hands of Osama bin Laden filled with celebration at the announcement of his death on Sunday night, and stayed full until early Monday morning.

Two former SMU students were among those that gathered at Ground Zero.

Cameron Cain, a former SMU student who transferred to Marymount Manhatten College this fall, said that the celebration at Ground Zero was “unlike any celebration I’d ever seen.”

“I saw people popping champagne and dangling from lamp posts, and also saw loved ones of 9/11 victims holding portraits of those lost and weeping,” Cain said. “This was hearbreaking. Some came together in prayer, while others rejoiced by getting drunk and reciting ‘Osama is dead’ over and over again.”

SMU alumna Laura Ratliff said that there were around 4,000 people celebrating at the site. The partiers came bearing “flags, air horns, beer and other ‘patriotic’ gear” and quickly began to yell patriotic chants and sign songs in unison.

Cain said the most popular choices for chants were “USA! USA! USA!” and “Bin is in the bin.”

The song crowd favorite was the national anthem.

While Ground Zero isn’t typically the site for celebrations, and is usually a more somber location to remember the thousands lost, Cain and Ratliff said that the celebratory crowd kept growing as people poured out of cars, apartments and local streets to join in on the chants and songs.

Phoebe Kingsak, a junior journalism major at NYU, was one of the thousands of New Yorkers who flooded the area.

She left her dorm room to join in on the celebration and ended up covered in champagne from two separate champagne showers brought on by nearby partiers.

She said that the crowd was “exhilarating” and that one of the most touching moments was when a woman addressed the crowd saying, “I feel joy, I feel peace. I will never feel broken by the enemy.”

Bin Laden was shot in the head by a group of American soldiers at a secured compound in the town of Abbottabad, Pakistan.

The operation also killed bin Laden’s son, two other men and a woman, who was used as a human shield.

Yesterday, DNA verification of bin Laden’s identity was released.

After identification, he was buried at sea to meet quick Muslim burial requirements.