The first structural steel is slated for installation by spring 2008

With the recent announcement that the National 9/11 Memorial and Museum will open in 2011 rather than 2009, planners are taking advantage of the added time. They are working vigorously to secure artifacts that will ensure the most comprehensive commemoration of the September 11^th terrorist attacks as construction crews continue forming the memorial's foundations.

Museum Director Alice Greenwald presented her team's latest efforts to Community Board 1 on January 14^th. She walked the board and community members through the planned complex, beginning with the Museum Pavilion designed by Norwegian architecture firm Snøhetta.

Greenwald explained that the pavilion will house an auditorium and some exhibit space, but that it primarily will serve as the gateway into the memorial's sub-grade complex. The two five-story-tall "tridents" that once adorned the bases of the twin towers will be installed in the pavilion's entry foyer, immediately visible to museum visitors.

Escalators will take visitors below ground to various balconies where they can view the expanse between the reflecting pools (representing the twin towers' footprints), as well as the original World Trade Center (WTC) slurry wall. There and one level down, they can visit exhibits displaying WTC remnants and artifacts donated by the community.

The list of public donations is already long and includes "ephemera of daily life" such as nearby apartments' damaged furniture, first-hand diaries from people trapped in their apartments on 9/11, and first-responder equipment used in the recovery. Hermetically sealed cases will display preserved objects covered in WTC dust.

The concrete "Survivors' Staircase" that stood at Vesey and Church Street as one of the last remaining WTC structural elements will be incorporated into one of the memorial stairways -- though it will not be made accessible for safety reasons.

Exhibits will be multi-media, rotating oral histories, videos, still photography, and other digital media. Architects Davis Brody Bond, who are designing the sub-grade complex, also are creating a private repository within the memorial space to house remains of 9/11 victims.

"This is an event that could have happened to any one of us," said Greenwald. "The nature of terrorism is that it affects human beings indiscriminately. And the obligation of this project is to acknowledge that these were people like us, and that we live in this world and we're going to have to figure out a way to deal with this."

Memorial quadrant construction got underway in 2006. The first structural steel is slated for installation by spring 2008, while planners continue the schematic designs that will determine how to piece together the various elements headed to the complex.