NYC’s 9/11 Tribute Museum – Opinion

Another sad result of the pandemic is that the 9/11 Tribute Museum will be closing its doors in New York City on Wednesday. After a dramatic drop in visitor numbers, financial survival was impossible.

It is important to be aware that this gallery is not part of the official 9/11 Museum which can also be found on the exact same spot as the Twin Towers.

To put it simply, the 9/11 Museum located on the memorial site is the “official” museum. The September 11 Families Association manages the 9/11 Tribute Museum. This museum focuses more upon the individual experiences of those who were impacted by these attacks.

Nevertheless, it’s an important experience and its loss will be heavily felt. It has seen more than 5,000,000 visitors since it was founded.

The non-profit September 11th Families’ Association was started in November 2001 by families of the victims of the events of that tragic day. On their website, they describe their mission.

The mission of the 9/11 Tribute museum is to record, preserve and share these memories. The Tribute Volunteer Program has had an documented effect on 9/11 survivors. It promotes healing and compassion, as well as a greater appreciation of their role in history keeping.

The Tribute musuem was created in 2017 and is located just three blocks from the World Trade Center site, encompassing nearly 30,000 square feet. Just weeks ago, the country will be commemorating the 21st year anniversary of terror attacks.

AP Photo/Richard Drew, File

The Tribute Museum’s website describes its personal focus on its exhibits.

The 9/11 Tribute Museum is dedicated to remembering 9/11 by sharing the experiences of people who were there. You can take guided tours with family members or survivors and see the visual stories told through the exhibits.

Jennifer Adams-Webb, co-founder of the museum and the CEO of the September 11th Families’ Association, told The Post that visitorship cratered after the lockdowns, mandates and travel restrictions cut tourism across the board starting in NYC at the onset of the COVID crisis:

Our earned income from admissions accounts for two-thirds each of our annual income revenues. In 2020, we were closed completely for six months. We had been averaging 300,000 visitors a year … and last year we had a total of 26,000 visitors, so it completely annihilated our earned income…

There’s no way we’re going to be able to dig out of this at this rate. We need the state or the city to step in with other partners to be able to say, ‘We value you. We want to save this organization,’ but at this point, we can’t continue to dig into a hole.

It will ship many exhibits to Albany’s New York State Museum, which will attract millions more visitors. The Families’ Association will also work to focus more on their online exhibits.

Gordon Huie, a doctor who helped out on 9/11 and who lost a sibling in the attack, called the museum a “part of our history, this is a part of America. It just hurts so much we’re going to short-change the world when we close this museum down.” Although it’s a non-profit that runs the museum, and not the federal government, it does seem strange—wrong actually—that President Biden just raised the IRS budget by $80 billion in the free-spending Inflation Reduction Act, yet there’s nary a dime for this beloved memorial. You’d think there’d be some way for the city of the feds to help out, especially since the revenue loss experienced was mostly due to strict COVID policies inflicted by state and local government.

My hope is that an outpouring of donations, or perhaps a helping hand from a billionaire, will prevent the closure of this little treasure of a museum before it’s too late.

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