The National Sept. 11 Memorial and Museum is very expensive to operate
Skift Take
In the 11 years since the 9/11 attacks, the feuding parties and interests trying to stake a claim on the World Trade Center site have displayed the worst tendencies of political and financial bickering, and, unfortunately, the memorial isn't immune to this.
With its huge reflecting pools, ringed by waterfalls and skyscrapers, and a cavernous underground museum still under construction, the National Sept. 11 Memorial and Museum at the World Trade Center is an awesome spectacle that moved and inspired some 4.5 million visitors in its first year.
But all that eye-welling magnificence comes with a jaw-dropping price tag. The foundation that runs the memorial estimates that once the roughly $700 million project is complete, the memorial and museum will together cost $60 million a year to operate.
[caption id="attachment_22235" align="alignright" width="420"] n this Dec. 20, 2011 file photo, visitors to the National September 11 Memorial in New York walk around its twin pools. Photo by AP Photo/Mark Lennihan.[/caption]
The anticipated cost has bothered some critics and raised concerns even among the memorial's allies that the budg
