June 17, 2005

Ground Zero to get visitors center, guided tours

Nearly four years after the attack on the World Trade Center, officials are finally rolling out formal information at Ground Zero to help visitors understand what happened there on Sept. 11.

Yesterday construction was begun to create a temporary visitor's center with educational programs and a gallery at 120 Liberty Street, across from the Trade Center site. The $3 million center will take up 6,000 square feet of the site formerly occupied by Liberty Deli, according to the New York Times. It will open in March 2006 and remain open until a permanent center is opened, possibly in 2009.

And starting in November of this year, daily public tours around the Ground Zero site will be led by volunteers with a personal connection to the attacks on Sept. 11.

Beginning next month, StoryCorps will set up an audio booth in the Path train station in Ground Zero to record stories from Sept. 11 family members, friends, survivors, visitors and rescue workers about the attacks on the Trade Center in 2001 and 1993.

Until recently, visitors to the site were faced with little explanation and often are not even aware that more than two towers stood at the massive site. For more than a year there's been an information booth at the entrance to the WTC Path station, but its information leaflets usually focus on other nearby sights, such as how to get to Chinatown. A month ago, a timeline was installed along the fence, detailing the key events of Sept. 11 on three panels. Many of the city's museums have exhibited tributes to Sept. 11 events, though nothing has been available at the site itself.

Among the other spots in the city with lasting tributes to the events of Sept. 11 are the NYC Fire Museum, NYC Police Museum, St. Paul's Chapel, the South Street Seaport Museum and the exterior wall of St. Vincent's Hospital in Greenwich Village (at 7th and Greenwich avenues,) which still displays the "missing" posters that seemed to cover every wall downtown for a month after the attacks. The images are fading, but they're still there.

Earlier: Sept. 11 timeline installed at Ground Zero
Memorial architects enhance towers' footprints
Downtown walking tours - via cell phone
Soundwalk releases self-guided WTC audio tour
Progress on museum plans for Ground Zero
Ground Zero, to go or not?

June 17, 2005 08:59 AM in Downtown, Museums, Sightsology, Tours

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