NY Mayor angers September 11 victims' families

New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg has angered families of September 11 victims by calling for a smaller Ground Zero memorial.

He claims new tenants would object to living in a "cemetery".

Mr Bloomberg believes estate agents would have a difficult time luring people back to Manhattan if the area was seen as a memorial.

"When people say 'Well, that's a cemetery', that's not exactly what a rental agent wants to have out there," he said in a speech to the US Chamber of Commerce. "We've got to find a balance like anything else."

Mr Bloomberg said the memorial should not occupy the entire 16-acre site of the World Trade Centre, a plan advocated by his predecessor Rudy Giuliani.

"There's a cry for making it bigger, and I would argue sometimes less is more, and that we run the risk of making it much too big."

Victims relatives criticised the mayor for being insensitive.

Sally Regenhard, who has not recovered the remains of her firefighter son Christian from Ground Zero, said: "It is a cemetery. That's the reality of it. This is not about real estate. We have to think about human life and those who died," she told the New York Daily News.

The Lower Manhattan Development Corporation is due to outline a public process next month to lead to a memorial design.

A spokesman for Mr Bloomberg said the mayor had for a long time maintained that the September 11 memorial should be the centrepiece of an area that should also host other uses.