December 29, 2011 update: To date, the 9/11 Memorial has received one million visitors with an average of 10,000 people per day paying their respects to this powerful memorial. 

On September 11, 2011, the tenth anniversary of the terrorist attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people in the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and Flight 93 in Pennsylvania, the new 9/11 Memorial in New York City will be dedicated in a special ceremony.

The Memorial opens to the public on September 12^th and will only be accessible by reserved visitor’s pass.  The visitor’s pass is free but must be reserved in advance for a specific date and time. Passes are available through the Memorial’s online reservations system at www.911memorial.org. On the Memorial’s website, you can plan your visit, reserve your visitor’s pass, take an aerial tour of the Memorial and learn about the different collections in the Memorial Museum. There is also a dedicated section of the website for family members of those killed to reserve passes and learn how the names are arranged.

A preview of the Museum within the Memorial will be available before the Museum’s official opening. It will house an ongoing collection of diverse items including artifacts and photographs, as well as audio and video tapes associated with the events of September 11, 2001 and February 26, 1993, when the first World Trade Center bombing took place.  Visitors can hear chilling accounts of these terrible days and retrace the steps of countless first responders whose harrowing stories give new meaning to the words bravery and commitment. Others who live in lower Manhattan also share their stories of how residential life has changed near ground zero.

The planned entrance to the Museum is via the “Wall of Faces,” a corridor filled with portraits of the thousands of men, women and children who perished. Rotating exhibits of personal artifacts, as well as their loved ones’ remembrances will express the scale of just how many lives were impacted by the heinous attacks. The Museum will continue to develop and serve as a living history of the victims and the events in an effort to “bear witness, and serve as a reminder that we are all diminished when any one of us suffers the loss of a loved one through a senseless act of terrorism.”*

Many of the reserved times for the first few weeks are already filled so make your plans early to visit the 9/11 Memorial. Covington Travel has secured special advance group reservations for December 10^th, as part of our annual New York Holidays by Rail trip, December 9-12, 2011. Please join us for this unique escorted event to pay your respects.

 

Many thanks to Dee Dee White of Covington Meetings & Events for sharing her perspective of this important memorial. Dee Dee will personally be escorting the December trip.

* http://www.911memorial.org.