Committee suggests artifact on street at site

NEW YORK (AP) -- A "powerful, visible" artifact from the World Trade Center should be placed at street level to usher visitors into a memorial museum at the site, a committee of family members, survivors and historians recommended Wednesday.
The committee, formed to suggest what should be included in the museum recalling the Sept. 11 terrorist attack, also said that visitors should be able to directly access the center's remnants and the base of the trade center towers' footprints.
The 27-member committee, which includes five victims' relatives, didn't recommend which artifact should "provide a signpost and icon for the memorial center" at street level. Remnants of the attacks include a steel beam from the towers and fire trucks that went to the scene. They are in storage in a hangar at John F. Kennedy International Airport.
Officials for the Lower Manhattan Development Corp., the agency which will ultimately decide what should be in the museum, have leaned against placing Sept. 11 artifacts at street level, saying it would be difficult to preserve them and that it would be emotionally jarring.
But historian Kenneth T. Jackson, a committee member, said the committee wanted to bring some reminders of the Sept. 11 attacks above ground.
"This is not a day at the beach," he said. "If you want to have a happy afternoon, I don't think you should go to the site of the worst terrorist attack in American history."