Ground Zero opens to public 10 years on

THE plot of land known for a decade as “Ground Zero” has opened to the public for the first time since September 11, 2001, transformed into a memorial consisting of two serene reflecting pools ringed by the chiseled-in-bronze names of the nearly 3,000 souls lost.

The 9/11 memorial plaza opened its gates at 10am yesterday under tight security. Visitors are allowed to walk among hundreds of white oak trees on the eight-acre site and gaze at the water on the exact spots where the World Trade Center’s twin towers stood.

They are also able to run their fingers over the engraved names of the 2,977 people killed in the terrorist attacks in New York, at the Pentagon and in Pennsylvania, as well as the six slain during the bombing of the Trade Center in 1993.

The memorial plaza opened to the families of the victims for the first time on Sunday, the 10th anniversary of the attacks.

“It will do what the terrorists tried to prevent, which is we’ve created a place where, regardless of political stripes, economic class, ethnicity, country of origin, people will be coming together, paying their respects at a place that’s been transformed from one that was noted for such pain... to a place of stunning beauty,” memorial president Joe Daniels said.

Admission is free, but access is tightly controlled. Visitors will need to obtain passes in advance, allowing them to enter at a specified time. No more than about 1,500 people at a time will be allowed in.

Visitors must empty their pockets, walk through a metal detector and send their handbags and backpacks through X-ray.

About 7,000 people were issued tickets for opening day. Some 400,000 have reserved tickets for the coming months, Daniels said.

Much of the memorial complex is still under construction. The museum pavilion, a tilting structure that evokes the sections of the Trade Center facade that remained standing after the towers fell, is scheduled to open on the 11th anniversary of the attacks.

The underground portion won’t open until 2012, meaning visitors will have to wait to see sights like the giant slurry wall, built to keep the Hudson River from flooding the Trade Center’s foundations, or the survivor’s staircase that allowed so many people to flee to safety.

But seeing the names was enough for many of the 9/11 victims’ families.

“It breaks me up,” said David Martinez, who watched the attacks from his office in Manhattan and later learned he had lost a cousin and a brother.

Debra Burlingame, whose brother, Charles, was the pilot of American Airlines Flight 77, cried when she found his name, grouped with crew members and passengers aboard the flight.

“These are all his crew,” she said. “I know all their families. These passengers, I knew their families. These people are real people to me. It’s very touching to see all these people here together.”

The cost of the memorial and museum has been put at about $700 million (€513m), with an annual operating budget of $50m to $60m.