The 9/11 Tribute Museum, opened in 2006 to give guided tours and tell first-person stories about the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, has shut its doors, the latest New York business permanently affected by the pandemic.
After having greeted over 5 million visitors, the museum closed its location at 92 Greenwich St. as of Aug. 17. “Financial hardship including lost revenue caused by the pandemic prevents us from generating sufficient funding to continue to operate the physical museum,” Jennifer Adams, co-founder and chief executive, said in a statement, adding an online presence will continue to give educational resources and support for the 9/11 community. The museum’s walking tour program, led by survivors, first responders, residents and family members of Sept. 11 victims, will cease operations.
The museum, founded by the nonprofit September 11th Families’ Association, is separate from the larger National September 11 Memorial & Museum that opened later on Sept. 11, 2011, 10 years after the terrorist attacks. The 9/11 Memorial, located at 180 Greenwich St. just a few blocks north of the Tribute Museum, is known for its signature twin reflecting pools with nearly 3,000 names inscribed on bronze parapets to remember those killed in the attacks.
The Tribute Museum said the majority of its collection is being moved to the New York State Museum in Albany.
The museum, with about 26,000 square feet of exhibition space, was closed for six months in 2020 and had been averaging 300,000 visitors a year pre-pandemic before that number plunged to a total of 26,000 last year, Adams told CoStar News in an emailed statement. While the museum’s visitors in the first six months of this year rebounded, with the first-half number about equal to the total for 2021, that was still not enough. Admissions had made up about two-thirds of the museum’s revenue, Adams said.
The museum started a “Save the 9/11 Tribute Museum” petition on Change.org earlier this year. The description page says New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and New York City Mayor Eric Adams “have the power to save Tribute.”
“NY politicians have promised to help the 9/11 Tribute Museum with its pandemic-related financial woes,” according to an update on the petition on Aug. 6. “No help has been forthcoming.”
The petition has gathered more than 37,500 signatures as of Monday. Adams told CoStar in the email it would still make a difference to the museum’s fate should more people sign the petition and politicians decide to step in.
The number of visitors to New York slumped to 22.3 million in 2020 from 66.6 million pre-pandemic in 2019, according to New York City’s tourism arm, NYC & Co. That number improved to 32.9 million last year and is expected to recover to 56.7 million this year and 63.7 million next year as the domestic tourist count is projected to top the pre-COVID-19 level next year.
However, the number of international visitors, said to be a key source of visitors to the museum, still trails behind. The number of overseas visitors to New York plunged to 2.4 million in 2020 from 13.5 million in 2019 and is only expected to recover to 8.3 million this year and 11.4 million next year, according to NYC & Co.