Gridlock Delays 9/11 Museum Opening by at Least a Year

The 9/11 museum at the World Trade Center site in New York will not open Tuesday as long planned, nor by next year’s 12th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, as officials continue to wrangle over who will pay to run the facility, reports The New York Times.

Work on the project stopped nearly a year ago amid a fight over who is liable for hundreds of millions of dollars in cost overruns—the foundation behind the National September 11 Memorial and Museum, or the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which owns the site.

Meanwhile, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, who also serves as the foundation’s chair, and Gov. Andrew Cuomo have been unable to resolve a dispute about which government agencies will cover the museum’s operating expenses and oversee both it and the surrounding 9/11 memorial, which opened a year ago.

Museum officials say fundraising has slowed as the delays mount. The Sept. 11 foundation, which has collected $450-million in private gifts for the project, estimates that once work resumes, it will take a year of construction and two to three months to install exhibits before the museum can open.

The foundation estimates that once complete, the memorial and museum complex will cost $60-million a year to operate, far more than other U.S. memorial sites such as Arlington National Cemetery and Gettysburg National Military Park, writes the Associated Press.