Construction will be halted at WTC site on 9/11

http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/200...halted_at.html

by Claire Heininger
Wednesday August 01, 2007, 3:34 PM

As family members of 9/11 victims spar with New York City over plans to move this year's commemoration ceremony away from the World Trade Center site, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey today offered something of a compromise.

After a group of family organizations filed a permit request with the Port Authority - which owns the site - asking to hold the annual event where it has been held for the past five years, the agency said it "appreciate(s) this request" and will suspend construction there on Sept. 11.

"As an agency that lost 84 friends and colleagues on September 11, the Port Authority is sensitive to the needs of those who lost loved ones," Port Authority Chief of Public and Government Affairs Stephen Sigmund said in the statement. "We are actively looking at ways to accommodate family members who want to pay their respects on the World Trade Center site on 9/11, but the substantial construction activity and current site conditions will not allow the formal ceremony to be safely conducted on the site.

"We stay in regular contact with family members and we appreciate this request."

New York City officials have said that the state of construction at Ground Zero makes it unsafe to host the annual ceremony, which in past years has drawn large crowds for the reading of nearly 3,000 victims' names and two moments of silence. They planned to move the gathering to a plaza off the southeast corner of the site.

Family members - who at past remembrances were permitted to walk down a ramp into the seven-story pit and place flowers on the bedrock - balked, saying it is "essential" to hold the memorial at the "authentic site" of the attacks.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg reinforced the city's position Monday, saying family members will have some access to the site -- just not to the pit and not for a ceremony.

"It's just not safe," said Bloomberg, according to the Associated Press. "Listen, we've had enough tragedy on that site. Our first priority, No. 1, is to make sure that everybody's safe, and nothing's going to get us off that."