Tickets only at Ground Zero

Visitors to the platform have been queuing for hours

		By Jane Standley BBC New York correspondent

The authorities in New York have announced that they are to start issuing tickets for a special viewing platform next to the ruins of the World Trade Center.

A tribute to the victims on the viewing platform

The platform opened on 30 December but has drawn so many people that they are standing in lines for hours in bitterly cold weather to gain access to it.

The viewing stand, built in the form of a ramp which rises up to a long wooden platform, is the first of four which are planned for around the site of the World Trade Center.

Despite the bitterly cold winter weather, it has been packed with thousands of visitors who are prepared to wait for hours to see the ruins and to pay their respects to the people who died there, and to the emergency teams who are still working there.

Time limit

Now, the city says it will issue 100 free tickets at a time from one of its tourist offices to save people from having to line up in the cold.

Visitors will then be allowed half an hour on the platform.

Not everyone agrees with the idea of the viewing platforms, though. Some New Yorkers say viewing the ruins of the World Trade Centre is ghoulish, while others who live close to the site say it is disruptive while they are trying to get their lives together.

But the city authorities argue that people from around the United States and the world should be allowed to see the destruction for themselves, and that New York needs as many visitors as possible if its damaged economy is to recover.