The National September 11 Museum - which includes gut-wrenching artifacts and graphic photos of the attacks - will be open to the public as the area slowly becomes integrated with the surrounding streets again. Fences around the memorial plaza have come down, opening it up to the public and camera-wielding tourists.
But before they are allowed inside, relatives of victims will come together at the 9/11 Memorial Plaza for a somber name-reading ceremony honoring every one of the people who perished in the attacks on the Twin Towers, the Pentagon, and inside the plane that crashed in rural Pennsylvania.
During the ceremony, six moments of silence will be observed marking the strikes on the towers, and the Pentagon, the collapse of the skyscrapers and the time Flight 93 went down in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
It comes after two blue columns of light representing the towers illuminated the skies over Lower Manhattan in a vivid tribute on Wednesday night.
But for some who lost loved ones in the attacks, the increasing feel of a return to normalcy in the area threatens to obscure the tragedy that took place there and interfere with their grief.
'Instead of a quiet place of reflection, it's where kids are running around,' said Nancy Nee, whose firefighter brother, George Cain, was killed in the attacks. 'Some people forget this is a cemetery. I would never go to the Holocaust museum and take a selfie.'
For others, the changes are an important part of the healing process.
'When I first saw (One World Trade Center), it really made my heart sing,' said Debra Burlingame, whose brother Charles Burlingame was the pilot of the plane that crashed into the Pentagon. 'It does every time I see it because it's so symbolic of what the country went through.'
'I want to see it bustling,' she said. 'I want to see more housing down there; I want to see it alive and bursting with businesses.'
Although the reconstruction has been plagued by delays, two of the new skyscrapers built around the site of the fallen twin towers are now open, while 1 World Trade Center, the tallest skyscraper in the Western hemisphere, is due to open later this year.
Against that backdrop, politicians, families of those who died in the attacks and other dignitaries will gather on Thursday to observe moments of silence and hear recitations of nearly 3,000 victims' names. It has become an annual ritual.
It is the first commemoration ceremony since the opening of the 9/11 museum and the adjoining repository for unidentified human remains at the site. That is an important milestone for families of the victims, officials say.
'For the first time this year, because the museum opened in May, family members will be able to visit the museum as part of the commemoration,' Michael Frazier, a museum spokesman, said.
The earlier phase of the memorial, including the stone plaza wall and access roads, cost about $20.5million. The visitor and learning centers are earmarked at between $17million and $23million, Newlin said.
Still to be completed are a 93-foot tall tower with 40 wind chimes near the park's entrance. The tower and other access roads should cost another $3million to $5million, with the total cost of the park at about $60 million, Newlin said. The government spent another $10million for the land.
In Washington DC on Thursday, the National 9/11 Pentagon Memorial will be closed to the public until 11am for a private service for the victims’ families, which will begin at 9.30am.
The commemoration will be hosted by Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Martin Dempsey, with President Barack Obama scheduled to deliver an address.
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