9/11 Museum Opens After a Bumpy Road to Completion
Fought over, stalled, reconceived and finally built, the 180,000-sq-ft National September 11 Memorial Museum has followed a tortuous path since it was first proposed in architect Daniel Libeskind's 2003 master plan for Ground Zero. While nearly every part of the redevelopment effort at the World Trade Center site in lower Manhattan has generated debate, the mostly subgrade museum, which opened to the public 20 months late on May 21, has been a lightning rod for a flood of criticism and controversy. Superstorm Sandy inundated the entire WTC site in 2012.