9/11 memorial reservations start in July

The public can start making reservations next month to visit the Sept. 11 memorial after the terror attacks' 10th anniversary. Victims' relatives will have special provisions to schedule visits to the monument taking shape in the World Trade Center's footprints, organizers said last week.

Reservations will open to family members on July 6, five days before the public, and they will use a special phone number instead of the public's online system, the National Sept. 11 Memorial & Museum told them in an email message. Other special treatment will include a number of passes set aside daily for family members, and a separate entrance, the museum added.

The memorial's massive, waterfall-filled reflecting pools, inscribed with the names of the nearly 3,000 people killed in the Sept. 11 attacks and the 1993 trade center bombing, are to be dedicated on the 10th anniversary in a ceremony for victims' families.

But with a projected 4 million to 5 million visitors expected within a year as construction continues on the trade center site, the memorial has to schedule visitors for now, museum president Joe Daniels said.

Organizers haven't yet settled on how many visitors will be allowed per day, but preliminary plans called for a limit of 1,500 visitors at a time. -- AP