A museum established in Manhattan that was dedicated to remembering those lost in the 9/11 terror attacks has officially shut down permanently as of this past Wednesday evening, highlighting extreme financial losses due to the shutdowns induced by the COVID pandemic.
The 9/11 Tribute Museum had quite a hard time attempting to get its revenue back on track to his pre-pandemic levels, which ended up making it impossible for the September 11th Families’ Association, the museum’s founding group, to work their way out of debt in regards to its lease.
“Financial hardship including lost revenue caused by the pandemic prevents us from generating sufficient funding to continue to operate the physical museum,” stated Jennifer Adams-Webb, the group’s co-founder and CEO, as reported by ABC 7 New York.
“We’re millions of dollars in debt with our lease, and to try and make that up on top of our annual operating cost is almost impossible without visitors or some intervention from our government,” explained Adams-Webb.
The closing down of the 9/11 Tribute Museum takes place just a short few weeks before the 21st anniversary of the day that radical Islamic terrorists flew two hijacked airplanes into the Twin Towers in Manhattan, resulting in the deaths of over 2,753 Americans. Over the years, the museum has also taken steps to act as a support structure for survivors and those who lost loved ones in the attacks.
“Everything we’ve done, I’ve been proud of,” stated Peter Bitwinksi, a volunteer who also survived both the attacks against the World Trade Center both on 9/11 and during the 1993 bombing at the North Tower. “The amount of handshakes and tears I’ve experienced over the 13 years is what made it all worth it.”
Adams-Webb stated to the New York Post that two-thirds of the museum’s total yearly revenue stems from the admissions fees of the museum. “We were completely closed for six months in 2020. We had been averaging 300,000 visitors a year … and last year we had a total of 26,000 visitors, so it completely annihilated our earned income,” she stated.
To go along with all of the difficulties that came with the COVID pandemic-induced lockdown, the museum struggled to entice people back into the establishment in the wake of the shutdown finally ending. The total number of visitors going to the museum drastically dropped from roughly half a million visitors back in 2011 to just 26,000 total visitors in 2021.
Despite the shutdown, the vast majority of the artifacts that had been preserved by the museum are slated to be moved to Albany, where they will be set up on display inside of the New York State Museum in order to allow future generations of Americans to see them.