September 10, 2010

Sept. 11 memorial set to open, with limits on public access

NEW YORK

Officials hoisted a 70-foot (21-meter) piece of World Trade Center steel at ground zero Sept. 7 and vowed to open the Sept. 11 memorial by next year, although they acknowledged that the ongoing construction at the site would limit where and how the public could visit.

The memorial, with reflecting, waterfall-filled pools set above the footprints of the fallen towers, its wall of victims’names, its trees and green spaces, is expected to open by the 10th anniversary of the 2001 attacks. Officials have said it would be open to the general public after that.

But the public will only be able to enter the memorial from the western edge of ground zero, while fenced boundaries that surround the site on three other sides of the eight-acre plaza will still be there, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said.

“Every once in a while they’re going to have to move a beam or something and they’ll close off a part of it,” the mayor said, but added visitors would be able to still walk through the cobblestoned plaza and pause by the memorial pools.

“You’ll be able to come, walk the plaza, sit, contemplate, the fountains will be working, look at the names, you can reflect,” he said.

Thousands of visitors come to peer inside the fenced construction site or visit two adjoining museum sites a day. Once the official memorial is open, officials estimate 7.1 million people will visit it in the first year.

Bloomberg said a northeast section of the plaza would be closed at some point while a transit hub is being built underneath it and said other parts of the plaza could close as needs warrant. Several of the 400 trees that are planned at the plaza — including 16 that were planted this summer — will still need to be installed after the 10th anniversary passes.

Associated Press

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