9/11 Memorial Opens

The plot of land known for a decade as "the pile," ''the pit" and "ground zero" is now open to the public for the first time since the morning of September 11, 2001, transformed into a memorial consisting of two serene reflecting pools ringed by the chiseled-in-bronze names of the nearly 3,000 souls lost.

The 9/11 memorial plaza opened its gates at 10 a.m. today under tight, airport-style security. Visitors will be allowed to walk among hundreds of white oak trees on the eight-acre site and gaze at the water on the exact spots where the World Trade Center's twin towers stood.

They will also be able to run their fingers over the names of the 2,977 people killed in the terrorist attacks in New York, at the Pentagon and in Pennsylvania, as well as the six who died in the bombing of the trade center in 1993. Electronic directories with a "Find a Name" button will help people locate their loved ones.

The memorial plaza opened to the families of the victims for the first time on Sunday, the 10th anniversary of the attacks.

Although thousands of construction workers have come and gone from the site over the years, today marks the first time that ordinary Americans without a badge, a press pass or a hard hat will be able to walk the grounds where the victims were once entombed in a mountain of smoking rubble.

Admission is free, but access will be tightly controlled. Visitors will need to obtain passes in advance, allowing them to enter at a specified time. No more than about 1,500 at a time will be allowed in.

Visitors will have to empty their pockets, walk through a metal detector and send their handbags and backpacks through an X-ray machine.

About 7,000 people were issued tickets for opening day. Some 400,000 have reserved tickets for the coming months, Daniels said.

Much of the memorial complex is still under construction, including the museum portion. The museum pavilion, a tilting structure that evokes the sections of the trade center facade that remained standing after the towers fell, is scheduled to open on the 11th anniversary of the attacks.

Eventually visitors to the underground portion of the complex will be able to gaze at such sights as the giant slurry wall, built to keep the Hudson River from flooding the trade center's foundations, and the survivor's staircase that allowed so many people to flee to safety.

But seeing the names was enough for many of the families. The letters in the names have been entirely cut out of the bronze, with only emptiness beneath them.

The cost of the memorial and museum has been put at about $700 million, with an annual operating budget of $50 million to $60 million. The nonprofit organization that runs the project has raised about $400 million in private donations and is seeking federal funds so that the memorial and museum can be free of charge.

The centerpiece of the memorial is the two giant, square pits and reflecting pools that sit in the footprints of the two towers. The waterfalls cascading down the four walls of each fountain are the largest such fountains in North America.

Skyscrapers are now pushing upward all around the plaza, and the roar of construction will be a constant at the site for some time.

One World Trade Center, the spire once called the Freedom Tower, is now 1,000 feet high and well on its way to becoming the tallest building in the U.S. at 1,776 feet — higher even than the twin towers. The steel skeleton of the new 4 World Trade Center is 47 stories high and counting.

The memorial foundation has arranged for a separate entrance for relatives of the victims and plans to set aside certain days or hours where the plaza will be open only to firefighters, police officers and other emergency workers.

Brian Blackwell