Monday, May 6, 2013

Would You Pay $25 To See 9/11 Memorial?

From Firehouse.com: Faced with hefty operating costs, the foundation building the 9/11 museum at the World Trade Center has decided to charge an admission fee of $20 to $25 when the site opens next year.
The exact cost of the mandatory fee has not yet been decided.
Entry to the memorial plaza with its twin reflecting pools will still be free.
The decision to charge for the underground museum housing relics of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks has been greeted with dismay by some relatives of 9/11 victims.
"People are coming to pay their respects and for different reasons," said Janice Testa of Valley Stream, whose firefighter brother Henry Miller Jr. died at the twin towers. "It shouldn't be a place where you go and see works of art. It should more be like a memorial place like a church that there's no entry fee."....
With the cost of operating the memorial and museum projected to be $60 million a year, the memorial foundation voted at its board meeting last week to charge a mandatory admission fee for the museum.
"This is something that is going to be important and is going to be worth the expenditure," Joseph Daniels, president of the National September 11 Memorial and Museum, said Saturday.
Daniels said the museum will be free during certain hours every week and will offer student and senior discounts.
Foundation officials had considered an optional donation but rejected the idea.
"We decided that it's more fiscally prudent to have a straight ticket charge," Daniels said.  http://www.firehouse.com/news/10937372/officials-to-charge-steep-fee-for-9-11-museum-entry
Would a family of 4 pay $100 to get in?  I doubt it, though some would.
But does it really cost $60,000,000 to operate a year?  I doubt that to.
If it is going to cost so much to operate and yet charge so much to get in, this is not museum is not going to work out well.
Maybe they need to get some corporate sponsors, if they haven't done so already.

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