“They are a big, humongous government authority, but they showed a lot of humanity here in what they have done, and they deserve credit for that,” Mr. Burke said in his speech, thanking the Port Authority. “They listened to me; I became the ‘Sphere’ guy, year after year, in meeting after meeting.”

In the weeks after the attacks, the “Sphere” emerged from the smoldering debris field with its top shorn open like bashed-in skull. But it was structurally intact, and its survival — it was the only World Trade Center artwork that remained — felt to some like a miracle. In 2002, it was moved to Battery Park, where it was welcomed by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and others in a somber ceremony as a powerful symbol of resilience. But a decade later, the park, which was to be renovated, asked that it be moved.

Mr. Bloomberg said he wanted to keep the “Sphere” in Battery Park. “I think it’s beautiful where it is,” he said in 2012. Michael Arad, the memorial’s designer, had pushed against displaying it and other artifacts amid the pools at the memorial site to preserve the integrity of his design. That stance was supported by the 9/11 Memorial’s leadership.

“There has been a strong desire to maintain the formal integrity of the design that was accepted and built, and to put something this large and monumental on the plaza would change the dynamic,” Alice Greenwald, the president of the 9/11 Memorial and Museum, said on Wednesday, adding that “the entire premise of the design was the absence of the vertical.”