NEW YORK (AP) – The CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald, which lost 658 people on Sept. 11, says there are strings attached to his $25 million pledge for the World Trade Center memorial.

The names of the Sept. 11 dead must be grouped with the people the victims worked with or died with, Howard Lutnick said.

“I want to support the memorial,” Lutnick told the Daily News in Friday editions.

“But I only want to support the memorial if the families are taken care of. … They don’t want a random list of names.”

“I’m one of those family members,” added Lutnick, whose brother was among the firm’s employees killed in the terrorist attack.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who was just made chairman of the foundation raising money to build the memorial, retorted Friday that “nobody’s going to buy the memorial.”

“Nobody’s going to dictate with cash what’s the right thing to do,” Bloomberg said. Of Lutnick, who is also a board member of the World Trade Center Memorial Foundation, the mayor said, “I think it’s very appropriate that his company make a donation.”

Lutnick told the Daily News that he first proposed the $25 million offer in June to Gov. George Pataki. “I gave my proposal directly and personally to the governor of New York. … He was very happy and excited about it.” Pataki’s office declined comment.

Many family members, supported by city fire and police unions, have lobbied for two years to group names of the nearly 3,000 people killed by the floor or tower they worked or died in, and to list details like ages, their company or the plane they were on.

The current plan – favored by Bloomberg and Pataki – calls for the victims’ names to be listed in random order, which memorial architect Michael Arad has said would reflect the chaos of the day.

The foundation has raised $145 million of a $300 million goal. The memorial is expected to open in 2009.