Photos: 9/11 museum opens in New York

The 9/11 Memorial Museum is now open to the public.  (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

The 9/11 Memorial Museum is now open to the public. The entrance to the museum sits inside a two-story pavilion in the middle of the ground zero plaza.  (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

Radio towers that sat on top of the north tower were used by six broadcast engineers working at 1 World Trade Center. None of the engineers survived the 9/11 attack. The radio towers are now on display in front of an art installation by Spencer Finch.  (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

After years of debate over how to pay homage to an event that spawned heartbreak, heroism, wars, political upheaval and finally the revival of ground zero, the National September 11 Memorial & Museum will be dedicated on May 15, with President Obama in attendance.  (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

The museum displays remnants both large and small. This City of New York Fire Department Ladder Company 3 truck was recovered from the World Trade Center rubble after Sept. 11, 2001.   (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

Fragments of fuselage from American Airlines Flight 11, one of the planes that struck the twin towers, are displayed in the museum.   (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

Steel “tridents” once formed part of the exterior structure of 1 World Trade Center (the north tower). Some of the pieces are branded with the word “save,” painted by workers going through the rubble.  (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

NYPD Det. Peter Boylan discovered this torn and burned American flag in the debris from the towers and aircraft.   (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

The museum also provides a history lesson on Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda, and about the hijackers who seized the jets on 9/11, and who bombed the World Trade Center in February 1993.  (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

This slurry wall was constructed to hold back water from the Hudson River in the construction of the World Trade Center, which began in 1966. Here, workers put finishing touches on the wall, now part of the 9/11 museum display.   (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

Mangled steel from the 97th and 98th floors of the north tower sits on exhibit in the museum, reminding visitors of the attack’s destruction.   (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

More than 70 feet below ground, the museum begins with a gradual descent into the dim, cavernous exhibit space, where a progression of displays eases visitors into the heart of the tragedy. Above, Caitlin Pike goes through the exhibits.  (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

The museum hosts an art installation by Spencer Finch, composed of 2,983 individual watercolor drawings, honoring each of the people killed in the Sept. 11 attack. The various shades of blue represent the color of the sky that day.   (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

Officials say that in the absence of federal funds to cover the museum’s $60-million annual budget, they have to charge $24 for admission. Victims’ families, and police, firefighters and others who responded to the attack, will not be charged.  (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

“It was never easy, but it was essential,” said former Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg of the museum. Despite the tragic overtones of items on display, the goal, he said, was to honor the nearly 3,000 people who got up that morning, left their homes and never returned.  (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)