Obama, Bush to Attend New York’s 9/11 Memorial Ceremony, Bloomberg Says

President Barack Obama and former President George W. Bush will attend New York City’s ceremony observing the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said.

Obama’s and Bush’s presence marks the first time a U.S. president has participated in the annual event, which this year will coincide with the opening of a memorial plaza featuring reflecting pools, meant to be symbolic voids, on the footprints of the destroyed Twin Towers. The attack occurred eight months after Bush took office.

Bush and Obama will join governors Andrew Cuomo of New York and Chris Christie of New Jersey; George Pataki, who was New York’s governor in 2001; former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani; and Bloomberg. The ceremony will include poetry and quotations, and a reading of the names of all who died that day after al Qaeda terrorists hijacked jets that also crashed into the Pentagon in Washington and in Pennsylvania.

“Family members only will be allowed to walk onto the plaza, look at their loved ones’ names, look down into the voids,” Bloomberg said during his weekly appearance on WOR radio. “The first day it’s reserved for those family members who lost somebody on 9/11.”

Visitors must apply for reservations to see the site after Sept. 11, to avoid crowding, Bloomberg said. Tickets may be obtained through the city’s Website, www.nyc.gov.

The mayor is 9/11 National Memorial chairman, and founder and majority owner of Bloomberg News parent Bloomberg LP.

To contact the reporter on this story: Henry Goldman in New York at hgoldman@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Mark Tannenbaum at mtannen@bloomberg.net.