The long ramp that the family members of those who died on September 11, 2001 use to walk down to the bedrock of the World Trade Center site every anniversary of the tragic event is about to be removed.

Dismantling of the 460-foot-long ramp begins this weekend to make way for continued construction of the National September 11 Memorial and Museum. A section of the ramp will be preserved by the museum and be made part of its permanent collection.

The ramp sits in the middle of the Memorial quadrant, a critical location required for the cranes erecting steel. The steel for the northeast section of the Memorial has already reached street level.

The ramp was completed in March 2002 following the removal of debris from the 80-foot-deep World Trade Center basement resulting from the collapse of the Twin Towers on 9/11. Prior to the ramp’s construction, crews used muddy roads supported by packed debris to access the sub grade levels.

Installation of the ramp, which is composed of five spans supported by five concrete piers, allowed recovery workers and construction crews and vehicles to easily access the below-grade areas of the site during the final recovery efforts, the subsequent rebuilding of the temporary World Trade Center PATH Station and the initial construction work on the museum. The ramp was designed with a loading capacity to accommodate construction equipment in excess of 90,000 pounds.

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