Ground Zero: Regeneration Of Terror Site

Ten years ago Ground Zero was 16 square acres of twisted steel and rubble, a graveyard for nearly 3,000 people who died when the twin towers came down.

Now the site is in various stages of regeneration.

In the middle of it, taking up half the space, sits the 9/11 Memorial and Museum .

The memorial is to be dedicated at a ceremony on the 10th anniversary itself, and then it will open to the public for the first time on September 12.

Michael Arad is the architect responsible for turning a place synonymous with horror and loss in to a fitting tribute to those who died.

His design, called Reflecting Absence, was chosen from more than 5,000 submissions.

At its centre are two pools that stand in the footprint of the towers. Water constantly runs down the 30ft black granite walls into a second, smaller void in the middle of each square.

The plaza around the pools is planted with around 200 white oak trees. Eventually there will be around 400, chosen in part because they turn a golden colour during autumn, in time for each anniversary.

The names of the 2,983 people who died are inscribed in bronze on the edges of each fountain. It took a year to arrange them next to friends, relatives and colleagues, according to the requests of family members.

This includes those who died in the attacks on the Pentagon, the passengers of Flight 93, which crashed in a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania - and also the six people who died in the 1993 car bombing of the World Trade Centre.

Standing in the middle of his site, Michael Arad told Sky News Online: "I moved to NY three years before the attack and very much felt like an outsider for that period of time. It's an incredible city and a little intimidating at first.

"But when those attacks occurred I became a New Yorker , all of a sudden there was this sense that we were all in it together.

"I hope this memorial plaza will do the same for New Yorkers when they come here to this site.

"They might come here alone but not be here alone. This is really a place of assembly, a place of community, and it should be open to people everywhere. This is an attack that occurred here in New York, but it's an attack that people were horrified by around the world."

Paula Berry was the only 9/11 family member to sit on the jury which chose Mr Arad's design eight years ago.

Her husband David died when the south tower fell.

Now she says she hopes that the memorial will be a "therapeutic" place for other family members.

"One of the issues was what were we memorialising? And I think very early on in the process it became clear that what we wanted to memorialise was the sense of loss ... not just personally but also as a country," she told Sky News.

"For the longest time I've been so close to this project.

"I wasn't feeling the thing that I was hoping to feel as a family member until very recently, but I came to see the memorial and the water had been turned on, and I had that tug that emotional pull that I had been hoping to feel, and it came together for me at that moment in time."

But not everyone is happy.

Some family members are upset that the museum, which is due to open in a year, plans to privately house the as yet unidentified remains of more than 1,000 victims.

Sally Regenhard lost her firefighter son Christian in the attacks.

Now she is one of the lead campaigners against the plan to keep the remains of those who died below ground in the new museum.

She said: "The families have not been involved enough in the decision. We will fight it and fight it.

"It is a national disgrace that the remains of fallen heroes and lost loved ones are going to be some sort of sick tourist attraction."

The museum's directors have maintained that the private housing of the remains, accessible only to the Medical Examiner's Office workers and the families, is the most appropriate and respectful way of handling such a sensitive and unique issue.

Michael Arad is not directly responsible for the museum but knows that nobody involved in the regeneration of Ground Zero will be able to please all interested parties.

"This is such an emotionally charged project and you have to not let go of that emotional connection, but you can't let that hinder you or hamper you either, you can't be overwhelmed by it ... you have to remain sensitive to it but you can't let that sensitivity become a debilitating force as you move forward," he said.

The site, in the southern part of Manhattan, is not just a memorial.

Eventually there will be a performing arts space designed by Frank Gehry, and the whole area will sit on top of a vast transit hub and state of the art security centre.

Four new towers are being built. The tallest, One World Trade Centre, is already taking shape and is due to open in 2013.

Its top floor will be as tall as the original World Trade Centre's South Tower and its antennae will reach the symbolic height of 1,776 feet, which refers to the year that the United States Declaration of Independence was signed.

Tower Two, which is designed by British architect Sir Norman Foster, Tower Three and Tower Four are all in various stages of construction.

Tower Four, the shortest of the new buildings, is due for completion at the end of 2013, but the middle two may take more time.