Progress underway at Sept. 11 museum

Significant progress has been made at the 120,000-square-foot National Sept. 11 Memorial Museum at Ground Zero, according to the Wall Street Journal. Yesterday, members of the media took a tour of the site of the museum, which is slated to open Sept. 11, 2012. The museum will be located beneath an eight-acre memorial plaza, which will open a year earlier, on Sept. 11, 2011. The entire project will cost about $610 million. In contrast with museums where viewing the building exterior is part of the experience, the memorial museum will be underground and unseen from the surface, said Steven Davis, the museum’s architect and partner of Davis Brody Bond. Artifacts and photographs will be used to personalize the nearly 3,000 people who died Sept. 11, 2001. Exhibits will include wedding rings, the base of the antenna that topped the north tower and elevator motors from the towers, according to Alice Greenwald, the museum’s director. Museum officials haven’t decided yet if they will charge for admission, but it will be free for the family members of victims. [WSJ]