9/11 Memorial Sparks Protest

New York - Construction on a memorial at the World Trade Centre site began on Monday, spurring protests from some relatives of September 11 victims who said the project failed to honour their dead.

Officials arguing it was time to move on held a low-key groundbreaking for the $490m memorial. Later, dozens of relatives of the 2 749 people killed there gathered nearby, shouting, "No underground memorial".

The Coalition for 9/11 Families complained that the memorial didn't occupy a large-enough area, or "footprints," of where the twin towers once stood, didn't have enough exits and was being hidden below ground level. They filed a lawsuit late last week to halt construction.
Honouring precious people
The group's spokesperson Anthony Gardner said: "These footprints evoke what was lost, as well as the human drama that took place at this site on September 11 in a way that no museum or no memorial ever could."

Rosaleen Tallon, 34, whose firefighter brother, Sean, died in the rescue, had spent the past five nights demonstrating.

She said: "The world is watching to see how we honour these precious people."

The memorial, "Reflecting Absence" followed a design competition attracting more than 5 200 entries from 63 countries.

It would include two reflecting pools, a waterfall and the names of the victims of the attacks on the twin towers.

Rebuilding the site had been beset by problems. The WTC Memorial Foundation still had to raise $200m to reach its $500m target before the memorial and its 9 300-square-metre museum could be completed.

International Freedom Centre

Last year, a dispute killed the proposed International Freedom Centre after some families of the dead feared that some exhibits might be seen as anti-American.
A project to rebuild 30 000 square metres of office space on the site had yet to begin construction.

Stefan Pryor, president of the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, said time had run out for consultation on the memorial. "There has been abundant planning. ... It's time we begin to build."

Thomas Johnson, 65, whose investment banker son, Scott, died in the World Trade Centre, said it was impossible to accommodate the views of all the relatives.

He said: "The critics represent a minority of these families. There's different ways of expressing grief and one of the ways is through anger."