Ex-Presidents Join 9/11 Memorial Effort

All four living former presidents will be honorary members of the board raising funds for a Sept. 11 victims memorial, New York Gov. George E. Pataki announced Monday.

Bill Clinton, George H.W. Bush, Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford have agreed to become members of the World Trade Center Memorial Foundation, Pataki said in outlining redevelopment plans for ground zero. The memorial will open in 2009, along with Freedom Tower, a 1,776-foot structure that is expected to be the world’s tallest building, he said.

“Those who perished that day deserve a memorial that honors their lives, mourns their passing, provides solace to loved ones and tells their story to the world,” Pataki told the Assn. for a Better New York, a business group. “And this memorial will be the centerpiece and our first priority in the rebuilding effort.”

Plans for the Reflecting Absence memorial were unveiled in January. Until Monday’s announcement, however, no prominent names were attached to the fundraising effort. Construction costs are expected to reach $350 million, officials have said.

Pataki and New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg are expected to reveal the full list of board members for the memorial foundation next week.

City and state officials have outlined plans to build additional office buildings, retail shops and cultural facilities at the 16-acre site of the former World Trade Center towers. And by the end of this year, construction of three transportation-related projects -- including a regional transit hub linking bus, subway and rail lines from New Jersey and New York -- will have begun.

Pataki said the memorial would include reflecting pools, the names of those killed in the attacks and a private, subterranean area where families would be able to touch the bedrock, or deepest foundations, of the towers.

He also unveiled plans to construct a tomb for unidentified remains and an “interpretive museum” telling the story of the terrorist attacks.

Although officials have hailed the healing, unifying features of the memorial, the overall plans remain controversial.

Several organizations of Sept. 11 family members object to the current building activity at ground zero, which has covered the site with concrete. They say that the original bedrock areas of the towers should be free of any development.

Other groups are angry about plans to present one list of victims’ names in the memorial, without identifying some as emergency responders.

Pataki brushed aside these disputes, saying the memorial would help to “unify and strengthen our collective effort” to honor the site.