Hoping it will be "a dignified and reverential setting," the soon-to-be-opened National September 11 Memorial Museum in New York City says approximately 8,000 unidentified remains of those who died in the 2001 terrorist attacks in Manhattan are returning "to the sacred ground of the World Trade Center site."
According to museum officials, the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner of New York, which will operate and maintain the repository, plans to move the remains later this year. They will be in a large facility that will be behind a wall inscribed with this line from the Roman poet Virgil:
"No day shall erase you from the memory of time."
The medical examiner's office will continue its work of trying to identify the remains.
The repository will not be open to the public. There will be, the museum says, "an adjacent work space for the OCME and a private seating and viewing area for family members only."
The museum is set to open on May 21. "Whether visiting the museum or the repository, there is no scenario under which family members will ever be charged any admissions fees," the facility's officials state. As CBS New York has reported, there will be a $24 admission fee for other visitors — "Debra Burlingame, a museum board member whose brother was killed on 9/11, said there is no government funding, so all costs need to be covered by visitors."
"In New York, 2,753 people were killed when hijacked American Airlines Flight 11 and United Airlines Flight 175 were intentionally crashed into the north and south towers of the World Trade Center. A total of 2,977 people were killed in New York, at the Pentagon and outside of Shanksville, Pa."
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