Advertising
Supported by
The museum and memorial complex have receipts to pay the bills, but the pandemic has replaced all that.
By Colin Moynihan
Since its subterranean galleries opened in 2014, the National September 11 Memorial & Museum in Lower Manhattan has depended upon income from millions of visitors to pay for programming, operating costs and security.
Now, deprived of ticket revenue because of the coronavirus pandemic and facing a deficit of up to $45 million over the next year, the organization has started a fund-raising campaign and resorted to furloughs and layoffs that affect almost 60 percent of its staff.
“We have had to make difficult and painful decisions to save the deficit and adorn the loss of income,” Alice M. Greenwald, president and ceo of the monument and museum, said in a statement, adding, “It is never very undeniable to let your expensive friends and co-workers who have contributed so much to this sacred position disappear.
Aleven, although the open-air monument is expected to reopen on July 4, the museum is expected to remain closed for the time being, according to city and state guidelines.
The eight-acre memorial, with granite pools that wrapped the footprints of the ruined towers, opened in 2011. Funding battles late the opening of the 110,000-square-foot museum, built 70 feet below the memorial site, until 2014.
Advertising