Last night, the National September 11th Memorial and Museum's president updated Community Board 1 about what's happening with the eagerly anticipated space. According to NY1, it's "on track to open for the 10th anniversary of the attacks, but access to the plaza will be restricted... [the] memorial will open on schedule for the 10th anniversary of the attacks, but visitors won't be able to just walk up and stick around for a long time afterwards."
For the tenth anniversary this fall, the main focus will be for family members to visit the memorial, and then after that, when the memorial is more complete, Daniels thinks that only 1,500 people will be allowed at a time, "We're not exactly sure how many people at any one time will be on the plaza. It will be a capacity that's actually much less than the actual plaza can hold once the surrounding construction is done so we are dealing with the constraints of surrounding construction."
CB 1 is also worried about the influx of tourists that will be visiting a completed memorial, because it's believed 5 million visitors will be headed to Ground Zero. One resident said she heard 280 more tour buses will be flocking to the site. DNAinfo reports, "The key to the plan is that visitors to the memorial will have to reserve a free, timed ticket in advance. The memorial will control these tickets and will only give them to tour companies that agree to certain conditions, like dropping visitors off at remote sites and having them take public transportation to lower Manhattan, [said Daniels]."
