National September 11 Memorial

Just mention New York City and I am sure that vivid images of its iconic places like Times Square, Central Park, the Natural History Museum, Chinatown and the Statue of Liberty flood most folk’s minds. This is just a short list of what attracts travelers from around the globe to the “Big Apple”!

Wait! There’s a new yet somber attraction scheduled to open in lower Manhattan within the next month. I’m sure that most if not all visitors will want to add this site to their itinerary.

We are rapidly approaching the 10 year anniversary of the 9/11 tragedy that NYC and the rest of the world experienced. To remember that day a National September 11 Memorial is set to open at what has become known as “Ground Zero” the site of the former World Travel Center.

The National September 11 Memorial is a tribute of remembrance and honor to the nearly 3,000 people killed in the terror attacks of September 11, 2001 at the World Trade Center site, near Shanksville, Pa., and at the Pentagon, as well as the six people killed in the World Trade Center bombing in February 1993.

Here is some information on how you can secure timed reservations and visit the memorial Passes to the 9/11 Memorial are free of charge but must be reserved in advance. I’d suggest that you try to schedule your visit well in advance. Be sure to visit http://www.911memorial.org to reserve your tickets and obtain other useful memorial information.

To commemorate the tenth anniversary of September 11, the New York Historical Society will also be presenting a special exhibition, Remembering 9/11, which will be free to the public. The exhibition opens on September 8, 2011 and will remain on view through April 1, 2012. The exhibition presents a selection of several hundred photographs taken by professional and amateur photographers in the immediate aftermath of the attack on the World Trade Center (originally collected in the independent exhibition “here is new York: a democracy of photographs”), as well as letters written to policemen and firemen; objects that were placed in makeshift shrines around New York; images and texts from the New York Times “Portraits of Grief” series; photographs of the Tribute in Light; and drawings of the National September 11 Memorial, designed by architect Michael Arad with the assistance of landscape architect Peter Walker.