New York City’s 9/11 Tribute Museum closes its doors for good, citing financial losses during the pandemic
By Zenebou Sylla, CNN
New York’s 9/11 Tribute Museum closed its physical location in lower Manhattan Wednesday, less than a month before the 21st anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks, citing financial losses during the pandemic.
“Financial hardship including lost revenue caused by the pandemic prevents us from generating sufficient funding to continue to operate the physical museum,” Jennifer Adams, co-founder and CEO of the museum, said in a news release.
The museum opened in 2006 and provided information about 9/11 and the “unprecedented rescue and recovery operations and the rebuilding of both Lower Manhattan and of people’s lives,” according to their website.
The majority of the museum’s artifacts, videos and other items will be moved to the New York State Museum in Albany, according to the release. CNN has reached out to the New York State Museum for comment.
The Tribute Walking Tour program, led by the Tribute Museum’s 9/11 community of survivors, first responders, residents and family members will also end.
But the museum’s online presence will continue.
“For over a decade the Tribute Museum has shared educational resources for teachers and students online, reaching classrooms around the world with personal stories,” the news release said. “The Association is proud to continue its mission with its focus now being on an online, interactive engagement with the 9/11 community.”
The museum highlighted their online educational toolkit that “offers interactive video stories of people who were deeply affected by the attacks and reveal how they responded with humanitarian initiatives that strengthened their local and global communities. These stories encourage an understanding of the facts of this contemporary history and a focus on the extraordinary civic response.”
The city’s more well-known National September 11 Memorial & Museum will remain open.
The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2022 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.
