9/11 Stories Wanted for Digital Archive

"Officials at the U.S. National September 11 Memorial & Museum, to be built on the site of the World Trade Center attack, said they want people worldwide to submit images, video and personal stories to the institution's website.

The unrestricted digital archive, dubbed "Making History," permits anyone to contribute material. Offensive content may be flagged by others viewing the site. Memorial employees would determine whether it should be censored, said museum President Joe Daniels.

"Public participation is critical to building the historical record of the events of 9/11," Daniels said at news conference in lower Manhattan across from the construction site. "911history.org will create a collective history of 9/11 through those who experienced it, both at the attack sites and around the world."

The memorial grounds, scheduled to open Sept. 11, 2011, will fill eight acres, or half the original World Trade Center footprint, and feature 400 oak trees surrounding two memorial reflecting pools approximating the locations of each destroyed tower. Planners intend to open the museum on the memorial grounds Sept. 11, 2012, Daniels said.

A decision hasn't been made as to whether or how to display the most horrific images of the catastrophe, he said, caused when two passenger jets hijacked by al-Qaeda terrorists slammed into the twin towers on Sept. 11, 2001. Deaths totaled 2,752 people, including 658 at Cantor Fitzgerald LP, 355 at Marsh & McLennan Companies Inc. and 175 at Aon Corp.

The 125,000-square-foot museum will offer 96,000 square feet of exhibit space at bedrock, 71 feet under street level, including a 37-foot-tall steel beam that withstood the attack, and the concrete steps that hundreds of workers used to escape one of the buildings after it was hit and that remained intact after weeks of fire destroyed the structure, museum Director Alice Greenwald said.

The names of 2,982 victims, including 184 who perished in the attack on the Pentagon in Washington; 40 who died on hijacked Flight 93, which crashed in Shanksville, Penn., and six killed in a 1993 attack on the Trade Center, will be on walls surrounding the reflecting pools.