The night before the anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks, officials have announced that construction of the National September 11 Museum in New York City will soon resume. According to Reuters, the 9/11 Memorial and Museum Foundation and the Port Authority of New York found themselves in a stalemate concerning the budget for the project and work was halted as a result. The museum is being built on the site of the attack in Manhattan, which is also the site of the 9/11 Memorial that was completed and opened to the public last year, on the 10th anniversary of the attacks.
"My goal during this period has been to get construction on the museum started," New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who also serves as the chairman of the foundation, said in a statement, according to CNN. "This agreement ensures that it will be restarted very soon and will not stop until the museum is completed."
The Port Authority and the foundation came up with vastly different estimates for the cost of building the museum. Reuters reports that they varied between $700 and $1 billion, so the construction was put on hold while the numbers could be worked out. The two parties reached an agreement that reduced the Port Authority's monetary contribution by $150 million and also created a committee to be in charge of the annual ceremony held at the memorial site. Until now, that power had been held exclusively by the foundation.
CNN reports that as construction workers complete sections of the museum, these areas will be opened to the public. Construction equipment will soon make its way to the worksite to begin building the museum, which will feature 110,000 square feet of exhibition space on seven underground levels below the memorial site. The museum will house artifacts from the fateful day, with contributions ranging from photographs and voice messages made that day to various other personal effects collected in the aftermath of the towers' collapses.
"Over the last few years, we have made extraordinary progress at ground zero and today's agreement is yet another milestone in our work to finally complete the site as a place where people from around the world can come to work, visit and remember," New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, who oversees the Port Authority along with New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, told CNN.
