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            National 9/11 Museum at Standstill as Anniversary Nears

   by Carolyn Weaver

   Eleven years after the September 11 terror attacks leveled the World
   Trade Center, work on a museum at the site, which was to open on the
   anniversary this year, has stopped - because of financial and power
   disputes. At the same time, family members of some of the victims are
   fighting the museum's plan to preserve unidentified human remains in an
   underground repository.
   The National September 11 Memorial in New York has been open since last
   year - drawing more than four million visitors.  But work stopped
   months ago on the attached museum - because of financial disagreements
   between the Port Authority, which owned the destroyed Twin Towers, and
   the foundation that is building the museum. Monica Iken's husband,
   Michael, died in the attacks.
   "It's an embarrassment for the world to see," said Monica Iken. "They
   come there, and I've been there several times where people come up to
   me and say, `Where's the museum, why is it not open?' How do you
   explain that: `Oh, because we're fighting over some money?'"
   The museum's exhibits will tell the stories of the attacks and of the
   people who died.  There will also be displays about al Qaida and the
   9/11 plotters - although some family members, like Jim Riches, who lost
   his son Jimmy, think those should be limited to side-displays.
   "If you want to see their pictures, let them go into the kiosk and look
   at their picture, but I think you've made it more like a Hall of Fame
   for the terrorists, and that's the way I feel, by putting their
   pictures up there," said Jim Riches.
   But it is a collection that will never be shown that has caused the
   fiercest controversy: a repository for 9,000 unidentified fragments of
   human bone and tissue. It will be seven stories underground and
   off-limits to all but family members and the medical examiner. Riches
   and members of 16 other families have filed a lawsuit: they want the
   remains entombed above ground.
   "There's no museums, I don't think, in the whole country that put human
   remains in the museum, and you also would have to get the permission of
   the family members to do such a thing," said Riches.
   Mayor Michael Bloomberg, chairman of the museum foundation, says the
   repository is needed for possible future DNA identification.
   "One of the centerpieces of the museum, in terms of visibility and
   respect, is where you put the unidentified remains, and it is not just
   in a small place, it is in a facility that also has what the medical
   examiner thinks will be necessary down the road as technology gets
   better," said Bloomberg.
   Another issue: an atheists' group has filed suit to stop the display of
   a cross-shaped steel beam that became an icon for recovery workers at
   Ground Zero. The foundation responds that it is being displayed as an
   artifact, not as a religious object.
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   [1]http://www.voanews.com/content/national-911-museum-at-standstill-as-
   anniversary-nears/1502546.html

References

   1. http://www.voanews.com/content/national-911-museum-at-standstill-as-anniversary-nears/1502546.html