NEW YORK (AP) – For the first time at ground zero, construction workers will take the place of politicians to kick off a development project when initial work begins Monday on the Sept. 11 memorial.

Ten workers will begin cleaning the memorial site, checking the World Trade Center footprints for damage and installing protective coverings over parts of the original foundation to begin building the “Reflecting Absence” memorial, officials said. In six to eight weeks, concrete will be poured into parts of the foundation.

Although the official groundbreaking ceremony that usually precedes major construction projects won’t happen for a few weeks, “it’s just a very important milestone for the centerpiece of all that we have to do at the site,” Gov. George Pataki said.

“We think this is the right way to go about it,” said Stefan Pryor, president of the Lower Manhattan Development Corp. “We’re ready for the preparatory work to begin. We want to remain on schedule.”

Relatives of Sept. 11 victims and preservationists opposed to the underground memorial design and building on the original trade center footprints say it still isn’t too late to fight. The Coalition of 9/11 Families will be in court Monday to try and halt the construction, and other family members said the design isn’t yet set in stone.

“There is always opportunity until concrete is poured,” said Rosaleen Tallon, the sister of a firefighter killed in the 2001 terrorist attacks. Tallon began sleeping outside her brother Sean’s firehouse across from the trade center site on Wednesday, and said Monday’s construction work wouldn’t stop her protest.

“It’s just a really sad commentary that they’re just going ahead for the sake of going ahead,” Tallon said. “This is a behemoth of a memorial. Really, America’s not coming to see this kind of underground water thing.”

Others have said the memorial won’t be safe and disregards family and rescue workers’ wishes to list the victims’ names in a certain order.

Pryor said that Michael Arad’s design “will fulfill the highest standards of both safety and beauty.” Asked if changes could still be made to the design, he said, “we will continue to work with stakeholders within this process, including family members, as the construction proceeds.”

“Reflecting Absence,” chosen two years ago out of more than 5,200 competition entries, marks the fallen towers near their footprints with two stone reflecting pools at street level, surrounded by a glade of trees. The pools go 70 feet below ground, where visitors can find names surrounding each pool of the nearly 3,000 people killed in the 2001 attacks and the 1993 trade center bombing.

The memorial and underground museum is budgeted at about $500 million, although that figure is not final. Rebuilding officials said the project’s contractor will analyze the budget and come up with a maximum price in three months.

Gretchen Dykstra, president of the World Trade Center Memorial Foundation, said the start of construction should quiet skeptics who thought no plans would ever be realized at the site, and spur fundraising. “I think it will soar,” she said. The foundation has raised just over $100 million of a $500 million goal, while the LMDC state agency has contributed $200 million.

It will cost less than $2 million to prepare the site for construction. Crews will remove a gravel fill from the tower footprints, check the bedrock and box beam columns for damage and put protective, wooden coverings around them, said William Goldstein, a foundation executive vice president.

“It’s work that has to happen before anything else happens,” Goldstein said. “It’s not that dramatic.”

After that, crews will spend up to six months building 130 concrete footings to support the memorial, he said. The memorial is scheduled to open by Sept. 11, 2009.

In previous groundbreakings at the site, including one in July 2004 for the Freedom Tower skyscraper, politicians gathered to praise the pace of development in lower Manhattan before any work at all began. Pataki and other politicians laid a granite cornerstone for the tower that now lies untouched, since the tower was redesigned and its construction delayed last year.

“We’ll have an appropriate ceremony at the right time,” Pataki said of the memorial.

Copy the Story Link