

New arrival: The new museum completes the picture at the 9/11 Memorial. Pic: AP

Posted by Chris Leadbeater, Travel Writer, TravelMail, @LeadbeaterChris

For an event – if that is the correct word to use here – that happened almost 13 years ago, the power of 9/11 to create headlines that ripple across the planet is remarkable.

That, of course, is a deeply obvious statement. The terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001 were moments, written in blood and fire, which altered the course of the new millennium.

But today, in its own discreet little way, is a continuation of the story.

And perhaps a significant part of the healing process too.

Why? Because, in the last few hours, tickets have gone on sale for the 9/11 Memorial Museum – the long overdue institution which will complete the picture of recovery at the former site of the World Trade Center skyscrapers in the streets of lower Manhattan.

There have been times when it seemed that the museum would never be brought to fruition. It was meant to have been ready for the summer of 2012 (a year after the tenth anniversary of the disaster in 2011, when the wider 9/11 Memorial which frames it opened) – but it has been mired in bureaucratic delays, financial problems and sundry issues over the land on which it sits.



Discreet: The museum sits next to, but does not overshadow, the Memorial. Pic: AP

So today's announcement that it will open its doors to the public on 21 May – with a six day 'Dedication' period (15-20 May) in advance for survivors, relatives of the dead, emergency service staff and recovery workers – is a wholly welcome development.

In November, I wrote about the completion of One World Trade Center – the enormous tower which has been constructed alongside the memorial (and is recognised as the tallest building in the United States). It is, I argued, the "final piece of an intriguing metropolitan jigsaw, a grand statement with exclamation mark" whose loftiness re-applies a coating of unapologetic swagger to a site which was so notoriously shorn of its architectural height.

Well, if One World Trade Center is the exclamation mark, then the 9/11 Memorial Museum is the soft sub-text. The 9/11 Memorial itself is exceedingly well conceived – a calm, under-stated tribute to those who perished 13 years ago (and in the bomb attack on the same location in 1993). It spreads out around two pools of water in the footprints of the fallen skyscrapers, the names of the victims stencilled neatly into metal alongside.

But what the memorial has lacked is context. It dispenses remembrance and quiet, considered respect – but not explanation. The arrival of the museum changes this.

It will not be an easy task to be the voice of analysis in a place that is primarily about emotion and loss. But the museum looks set to strike the right note.



The museum's key exhibits are two support tridents from the Twin Towers. Pic: AP

Firstly – and in contrast to the epic proportions of One World Trade Center – it is not an overly dramatic structure. Designed by the Norwegian firm of architects Snøhetta, it stands silently next to the Memorial without ever threatening to overshadow it. And much of the building – seven storeys, to be precise – is concealed underground.

It is the exhibits within, however, which will prove the museum's worth – by looking at the build-up to the attacks, and examining their aftermath. They will also include a wealth of artefacts that are likely to underline, again, the horror of what took place that day.

Much attention will undoubtedly be focuses on two colossal tridents – support beams from the vanished towers. But there will be other crucial items too – a fire engine, bent out of shape by the tumbling masonry that consumed it; fragments of steel, twisted and mangled as the weight above them came crashing down; photos of the dead; harrowing recordings of phone calls between the emergency services and those stuck in the towers.

Visiting the museum is unlikely to be a joyful experience. But then, such places never are.



In the frame: Other exhibits include twisted steel girders. Pic: AP

It always seems wrong to describe institutions such as this, which are mostly based on sorrow – see also, perhaps, the Anne Frank Museum in Amsterdam, the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe in Berlin, and the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum in the Cambodian capital Phnom Penh – as 'attractions', as if they are pretty little landmarks to be ticked off by tourists on a sunlight-filled city break.

'Attraction' is certainly the wrong term.

But the 9/11 Memorial Museum will surely become as much of an entry on the 'must-see' list of New York locations as the Empire State Building, Central Park, Brooklyn Bridge or the Museum of Modern Art. Just for rather more sombre reasons.

More details on the museum at www.911memorial.org/museum (the admission price has been fixed at $24/£14), and on tourism in New York in general at www.nycgo.com/uk.

Have you been to New York recently, or are you planning a trip to the Big Apple? Will you be visiting the 9/11 Memorial Museum? Have your say…

Chris is on Twitter: @LeadbeaterChris