More than 12 years after the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center, the Sept. 11 Memorial Museum will open its doors to the general public on May 21.
The opening will be preceded by a weeklong dedication period with ceremonies and previews for 9/11 families, rescue workers, active duty first responders and lower Manhattan residents and business owners. The museum will remain open 24 hours a day during the dedication period, May 15-20, according to an announcement released yesterday by the National Sept. 11 Memorial & Museum.
Starting Wednesday, tickets to the memorial museum for visits when it opens to the general public are available at www.911memorial.org. Admission will be $24 but free on Tuesdays from 5 to 8 p.m. and free for 9/11 family members. Discounts also will be available for seniors and New York City schools.
The memorial museum, located seven stories below ground, will display artifacts linked to the events of Sept. 11, presenting “stories of loss, compassion, reckoning and recovery.”
The organization plans for 2.5 million visitors in the first 12 months of the memorial museum’s opening. The $24 admission fee is expected to cover 60 to 70 percent of the facility’s approximately $63-million operating budget. Total revenue for the nonprofit that operates the museum – the National Sept. 11 Memorial & Museum at the World Trade Center Foundation – was reported as $78 million for the year ending in 2012, the most recent year available.
The memorial had more than 12 million visitors since opening in September 2011 and will remain free. The memorial occupies eight of the 16 acres at the World Trade Center and remembers the 2,983 people who were killed in the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 and Feb. 26, 1993. Created by Michael Arad and Peter Walker, the design consists of two reflecting pools formed in the footprints of the original Twin Towers and a plaza of trees.
