Behind closed doors at the 9/11 Museum: Just some of the haunting 10,000 artifacts that will tell story of tragedy when venue opens

Memorial museum will have a six-day dedication period starting with a ceremony attended by President Obama on Thursday

Will be kept open throughout the weekend for relatives of the victims and emergency responders to tour the museum in private

Opens to the public on May 21 after 13 years of construction




The long-planned September 11 museum is due to open for the first time tomorrow when President Obama and relatives of the victims are welcomed into the site in lower Manhattan.



Heart-wrenching artifacts like personal momentos and the mangled steel beams from the collapsed towers are among the most moving displays.



The museum will open to the public on May 21 but the President will be on hand, along with a number of New York politicians, for the dedication ceremony on Thursday.

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Cut in half: The remnant of a firetruck that was damaged in the September 11 attacks is one of the biggest displays at the memorial museum

Wiring: The elevator motor that once shuttled workers up to the highest point of the towers is also one of the more than 10,000 objects on display

Artifacts like the slippers that were on board American Airlines flight 11 that crashed into the North Tower are among the most moving displays in the museum, which opens to the public on May 21

Structural remnants: Two beams from the towers (left) and the 'survivors staircase' (right) that helped hundreds out of the burning buildings shows the scale



New York as it was: A bicycle stand and the bicycles parked on them were maintained and are on display

Proportions: The 'Last Column', a 58-ton welded piece of plated steel became a memorial during the search and rescue operation and emergency responders posted their own memorials on its sides

The steel and glass museum houses more than 10,000 artifacts, 23,000 photographs, 1,900 oral histories and 500 hours of film and video.

Part of the slurry wall that held back Hudson River water is among the moving artifacts.

The public symbols of survival and loss include the battered 'survivors' staircase' that hundreds used to escape as the skyscrapers burned and crumbled.

The last column removed from ground zero is covered with missing-person posters and memorial inscriptions by ironworkers and rescue personnel.

Rescue workers: Relatives of the victims and emergency responders will never be charged an entrance fee to the site, which also contains the unidentified remains

Difficult exit: A New York Fire Department ambulance that never made it out of the melee is part of the museum collection

Fire resistant: In addition to the relatives of the fallen, emergency responders are allowed to visit the memorial over the course of the next six days before it is opened to the public

Dealing on a deadline: Firefighters and EMTs were not the only rescue workers who died on that fateful day, as police officers were also among the casualties

Eerily preserved: Dust and ash is shown on the display that made up the front window of Chelsea Jeans, a store that was located on Broadway near Fulton Street at the time of the attack and has since been moved into the museum

From the planes: A laptop used by terrorist Ramzi Yousef who was convicted of the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center is on display along with his mugshot (left) as is a window from one of the planes that crashed into the towers

The museum faced financing squabbles and construction challenges.



Conflicts over its content underlined the sensitivity of memorializing the dead while honoring survivors and rescuers, of balancing the intimate with the international.



The museum harbors both personal possessions and artifacts that became public symbols of survival and loss.



One of the more controversial inclusions is the cross-shaped steel beam that became an emblem of remembrance. (An atheists' group has sued, so far unsuccessfully, seeking to stop the display of the cross).

Sending out a signal: This 19.8-foot fragment of the once 360-foot transmission that stood atop the tower shows how dramatically everything was broken apart

Charred: Thousands of artifacts, like this payphone, were stored for more than a decade before being moved to the museum

Interactive: An animation at left shows the path that the terrorists took on that fateful morning, while pieces of steel from the impact floors on the 96th to 99th floor (right) are shown directly above the visitors' heads

Preview: The exhibit is meant to give a sense of the lead up to the attack and the aftermath as well as a minute-by-minute account of what happened

Portraits and profiles describe the nearly 3,000 people killed by the September 11 attacks and the 1993 trade center bombing.

Nearly 2,000 oral histories give voice to the memories of survivors, first responders, victims' relatives and others.



In one, a mother remembers a birthday dinner at the trade center's Windows on the World restaurant the night before her daughter died at work at the towers.



The museum also looks at the lead-up to September 11 and its legacy.



Members of the museum's interfaith clergy advisory panel raised concerns that it plans to show a documentary film, about al Qaeda, that they said unfairly links Islam and terrorism. The museum has said the documentary is objective and its scholarship solid.

Iconic images: The clouds of smoke (seen in a photograph at left) and the parallel bars of the building frame (at right) were among the most iconic references to the tragedy

Heartbreaking: The notes left by first responders on the remaining beams are among the most moving

Tributes: Photos and personal stories memorialize the thousands of victims who died in the terrorist attacks

Personal efforts: Quilts (pictured) and other objects made as memorials by New Yorkers are included in the exhibit, which will cost $24 for members of the public to visit

Using every piece: The letters in this Virgil quotation were forged out of steel from the Towers

While some September 11 victims' relatives have embraced the museum, others have denounced its $24 general-public ticket price as unseemly and its underground location as disrespectful, particularly because unidentified remains are being stored in a private repository there. Other victims' families see it as a fitting resting place.



The museum and the memorial plaza above it cost a total of $700million to build.



They will cost $60million a year to run, more than Arlington National Cemetery and more than 15 times as much as the museum that memorializes the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing.



September 11 museum organizers have noted that security alone costs about $10 million a year.



Revisiting the past: Former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani looks over a display during a press previewon Wednesday

Years of work: Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg was on hand as the chairman of the National September 11 Memorial & Museum Chairman when the dedication ceremony took place today

Careful construction: The memorial museum is housed near the reflective pools that stand in the place of where the Towers once were