February 5, 2014
Joe Daniels, President and CEO of the 9/11 Memorial and Museum, has announced a $24 mandatory admission fee for the 9/11 Memorial.
It’s a museum, not a movie. It’s a memorial, not a theme park.
What do they charge at Gettysburg? Pearl Harbor?
Salaries at the “non-profit” 9/11 Memorial and Museum are obscene. This allegedly non-profit organization is supposed to be a tribute to 9/11 victims. “It was built to tell the story of 9/11 to future generations about the worst day in American history. It was never intended to be a revenue-generating tourist attraction with a prohibitive budget and entrance fee.”
Daniels’s salary was last reported to be $371,307. He received huge raises for three years running. As far back as 2009, there were no fewer than eleven staffers at the National September 11 Memorial & Museum who each made more than $170,000. Four had salaries higher than $320,000.
What did they do with the billion dollars it took to build this underground museum morgue? There is nothing in the Memorial and Museum that addresses the ideology behind the attack. A billion-dollar memorial to the September 11th attacks on the homeland, and it censors the motive. There is nothing in the Memorial and Museum that addresses the ideology behind the attack. The museum does not properly explain to the visitors that the attacks were committed in the name of Jihad, or Islamic “holy war” against the West.
No jihad or Islam. Devastating.
The worst thing is that once you are inside the museum, you will see that the pictures of the attackers are more prominently displayed than the pictures of some of the victims.
This leads one to think: do the organizers of the museum want to pay tribute to the attackers, or what?
My organization, the American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI), held a press conference on September 11, 2013 to protest this outrage. (You can see details here and video and photos here.) Among the speakers was 9/11 family member Nelly Braginsky, who lost her only son Alec on 9/11. She told me recently: “The museum must be free. Families cannot afford $24. They should be able to see what happened to their country.” Travel and parking tolls are exorbitant. Who can spend that kind of money? Braginsky asked: “Why do they need 64 people to run the museum? At what salary? How many people are working? What are they doing all day? Where is the money? Five people would be enough. The salaries are enormous. Why not have students intern at the museum?”