Feud grows over NY 9/11 memorial ceremony site

By Rachel Breitman

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A fight is brewing in New York between some families of September 11 victims and the city over where to hold an annual memorial ceremony after officials said the World Trade Center site was an unsafe venue.

The memorial has been held every year at Ground Zero but this year construction is taking place and city officials ruled it unsafe. They have relocated the ceremony to a nearby park.

Eleven groups who say they represent thousands of family members applied for a permit on Wednesday to return to the space they consider hallowed ground, and are vowing to go to court if it is denied.

"Ground Zero is the graveyard for many of the people who died, so it is the obvious place to mourn them," said Jim McCaffrey, a firefighter who lost his brother-in-law, Orio Palmer, in the hijacked plane attacks on September 11, 2001.

"Let me be closest to my son," said Bill Doyle, whose son Joseph's remains were never identified amid the rubble.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg said safety concerns were the reason for the move. "We just couldn't make it safe," he said at a news conference on Monday. "But hopefully the families will participate."

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which owns the land, also said a ceremony at the site would be impossible for safety reasons.

Glenn Corbett, a professor of fire science at John Jay College, who was asked by the families' groups to examine the site, said he had identified an area amid the construction that he deemed safe for mourners to congregate.

"If the Port Authority says no to the permit, we'll take the complaint to the U.S. District Court," said Norman Siegel, a lawyer representing the families.

Reconstruction of the site of the September 11 attacks has been dogged by controversy with arguments over financing, security and design, as well as what sort of memorial to build.

The first steel columns of a new Freedom Tower were raised at the site last December, more than five years after the attack, and work is now fully underway.