2010-08-11 09:17

Museum architect Mark Wagner said the ramp is not intended to be a bold architectural statement, but rather an access path that allows the events of 9/11 to unfold. On Tuesday, it was still covered in rough concrete. The surface will be dark wood, while the underside will be muted, finished in dark, raw metal.

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Stairs or an escalator will provide the final 25-foot (7.6-meter) descent to bedrock, and to a trapezoidal expanse containing the 60-foot (18-meter) high slurry wall that held back the Hudson.

"You begin to understand that the slurry wall is the separation between the basement of the original trade center" and the river, Davis said.

The last standing 36-foot (11-meter) steel column that was removed from the trade center debris at the end of the nine-month recovery effort in 2002 stands in front of the slurry wall. It became a spontaneous memorial to the victims; construction workers and family members covered it with tributes, photographs and inscriptions. On Tuesday, it was sheathed in a climate-controlled covering.

The tower's foundational steel box columns are exposed at bedrock in the floor slabs, providing an outline of the buildings. The federal government said the column bases and slurry wall should remain in place.

The final descent runs parallel to the Vesey Street stairs, known as the survivors' staircase, encased in wooden scaffolding on Tuesday. The 37 steps served as an escape route for people fleeing. It stood for years as the last remaining above-ground remnant of the original complex.

There are also several places where visitors can stand between the remnants of the two towers.

Thousands of unidentified remains of 9/11 victims will be stored in the museum, in an area reserved for the medical examiner's office; an adjacent room will be set aside for family members. These areas will be off limits to the public.

A quotation from Virgil's "Aeneid", "No Day Shall Erase You From the Memory of Time," will be incised into the wall that separates the private and public spaces.

"The wall is only a membrane that separates us from them, and it's our obligation to remember," said museum director Alice Greenwald.

Anthoula Katsimatides, whose brother died in the attacks, said she hoped visitors will "learn something about one of those beautiful people who passed away on that day" and come away with "a sense of peace and a sense of hope."

The idea for the museum design began with "all the things we were given," the remnants of the complex.

"A traditional museum design is an icon which contains exhibits," he said. "But this museum, the icon is the exhibit."