This morning I attended a meeting of the Lower Manhattan Marketing Association (LOMA), where I learned all sorts of interesting things about the National September 11 Memorial & Museum. I’m going to pass it along as bullets because I think it’s more digestible this way. (Plus, I was kind of hoping to take a nap because I’m heading to City Winery tonight for the Over the Rhine concert.) The info is from Alice Greenwald (director of the NS11M&M) and Luis Sanchez (Lower Manhattan borough commissioner for the Department of Transportation).

••• In its first 12 months, the 9/11 Memorial Preview Site (that’s the one on Vesey) was visited by 1.1 million people—75% of whom were from other countries.

••• The 9/11 memorial (the plaza and waterfalls) will open in 2011; the museum (below the plaza) will open in 2012.

••• The projected number of visitors the first year: 5.5 million for the memorial, 2.7 million for the museum.

••• The museum is looking into timed tickets to manage the crowds. Someone asked if the museum will be free, and no, there will be an admission fee or a “suggested donation.” Families of victims will never have to pay.

••• Eventually you’ll be able to walk underground from Broadway and Fulton all the way to the World Financial Center (this is unrelated to the memorial per se but interesting just the same).

••• The crush of tour buses is expected to be a problem. Already, 3,500 buses enter Lower Manhattan (defined as below Canal) every weekday. Eighteen percent of visitors to the 9/11 memorial are expected to come by bus. In 2013, an underground garage for bus parking will open. It will have room for 80 buses.

More visitors = good for business, but is the character of our neighborhood going to change?