Families of Sept. 11 victims reached an agreement with Mayor Michael Bloomberg on Thursday, gaining limited access to the ruins of the World Trade Center during this year's memorial ceremony.
"We will work with the Port Authority to allow family members to safely descend the ramp in a single file stream that keeps moving into a limited area below ground to pay respects, and then ascend back to street level," Bloomberg said in a statement.
Family members expressed their approval of the mayor's decision.
"I'm just so happy that I'm going to be able to go down to my son's final resting place and leave flowers there," said FDNY (Fire Department of New York City) Deputy Chief Jim Riches. "I thank the mayor for using his head and being reasonable with us. And that's the way government is supposed to work," he said.
Earlier this month, Bloomberg said construction at the Ground Zero had made it too dangerous to hold a large public gathering there, and the city would instead hold this year's ceremony at Zuccotti Park, just southeast of the site.
The idea was rejected by the family groups which said the new location has none of the significance that Ground Zero has.
Over the past five years, at anniversaries of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, mourners have participated in the same ritual at Ground Zero, at which the names of the nearly 3,000 victims were read aloud and family members could descend a long ramp into the pit and lay flowers on the dusty bedrock.
Source: Xinhua
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