As vítimas do ataque terrorista ao World Trade Center são hoje homenageadas de um modo especial, na cerimónia de inauguração do Nacional September 11 Memorial & Museum, em Nova Iorque, no 10º aniversário do trágico acontecimento.
The long-awaited and much-debated National September 11 Memorial at the World Trade Center is set to open to the public on September 12, 2011,
the day after the 10th anniversary of the terrorist attacks that
brought down the Twin Towers in 2001. The 9/11 Memorial will be
officially dedicated in a special ceremony for victims’ families on
Sunday, September 11, 2011 and is a remarkable tribute of remembrance
and honor to the nearly 3,000 people killed in the terror attacks at the
World Trade Center site and at the Pentagon, as well as the six people
killed in the World Trade Center bombing in February 1993.
Entry to the 9/11 Memorial is free but a reservation is required through 911memorial.org,
which opened for online bookings on Monday. According to the president
and chief executive of the 9/11 Memorial, Joe Daniels, more than 1
million visitors are expected between September and December. “There is a
tremendous demand to see the memorial site from around the world,” says
Daniels, who explains the Memorial Museum attests to the triumph of
human dignity over human depravity and affirms an unwavering commitment
to the fundamental value of human life by demonstrating the consequences
of terrorism on individual lives and its impact on communities at the
local, national, and international levels.
Visitors will be allocated 45 minutes to see the memorial, a plaza
that consists of two massive pools set within the original footprints of
the Twin Towers. The twin reflecting pools are each nearly an acre in
size and feature the largest man-made waterfalls in the North America.
Bronze parapets inscribed with victims’ names ring the pools, which are
surrounded by over 400 trees, including the Peace Tree, which was
recovered from the rubble on the site and nursed back to health.
Construction of the seven floor underground museum and perimeter
buildings, including the tallest building in the US, which began in
2006, continues and is expected to open in time for the 11th anniversary
in 2012 with costs climbing up to $700 million.
Israeli architect Michael Arad, not
originally from New York, is the designer of the World Trade Center
Memorial, entitled “Reflecting Absence.” Arad won the ground-zero
memorial design competition in 2004 when he was just 34, beating out
5,201 other contestants and with the support of Maya Lin, designer of
the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington.
Once complete, the museum will house collections of diverse materials
includes artifacts, photographs, audio and video tapes, personal effects
and memorabilia, expressions of tribute and remembrance, recorded
testimonies and digital files and websites related to the history of the
World Trade Center, the events of September 11, 2001 and February 26,
1993, and the repercussions of these seismic attacks. StoryCorps
is just one of the museum’s moving tributes, which recounts stories
about the victims by friends, family, neighbors and co-workers providing
intimate perspectives on the life and character of each person lost in
the tragedy.
http://www.911memorial.org/
