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Leslie Ritten

Dr. Mark Janzen

Education/Interpretation at Museums - 6304

February 8, 2023

The “On-Demand Virtual Museum Tour at the 9/11 Memorial & Museum” located in

New York New York was the tour that I chose to critique for this assignment. The tour can be

accessed through the 9/11 Memorial & Museum website for a fee of $10.00. Once the tour is

purchased and a passcode is generated to input on the opening screen, an individual has fourteen

days to view. The process was straightforward once I figured out how to locate the guided tour

rather than the self-guided one. I contacted the online support team at 8:00 PM due to a

passcode error. They responded immediately with a personalized email within minutes of hitting

send. The email provided me with a new code as well as a message hoping that I enjoy the tour

and to reach out to the sender if I needed any further assistance that night or in the future. This

was very impressive to me.

Joey, who was part of the museum’s education department, led the forty-minute tour. The

introduction was brief, but concise, and through the tone of his voice and body language, it was

evident that he was going to lead the tour with respect and compassion for the victims of both

attacks on the World Trade Center and the virtual audience. Within the first minute of the tour,

Joey explained that the tour was designed to convey the museum’s mission which is, “to honor

and remember those who were killed on September 11, 2001 and February 26, 1993, but also to

tell the story of what stood here and what happened here”.1 From there he described different

1
On-Demand Tours | National September 11 Memorial & Museum, Accessed February 5, 2023,
https://www.911memorial.org/demand-tours.
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types of artifacts that would be presented in the tour and narrated his descent down seventy feet

below street level.

While traveling to the first area, Foundation Hall, Joey introduced the idea of organizing

the information he was sharing into four themes, “violence, heroism, solidarity, and

remembrance”.2 As a docent and former teacher, providing learners with some type of

framework enables them to organize and build on the information provided. In Nina Simons

book, The Art of Relevance, she writes that, “our brains crave efficiency. If it takes too many

leaps to get from here to there, relevance goes down the drain”.3 Two of the first artifacts Joey

introduced were the Last Column and steel Box Columns and described their significance. What

made these artifacts so special is that towards the end of his tour he circles back and addresses

them again making the viewer further ponder their impact after new information had been

presented.

As the tour proceeded, the way the museum chose to share narratives of individuals who

lost their life was moving. Joey would highlight artifacts and describe the connection to a

particular person. One example is of the radio tower engineer who was working on the thirty-six-

foot antenna on top of the North Tower. As Joey tells the story the camera is panning the

enormous remnant of a portion of the antenna that was salvaged. Another example Joey shared

was about a man who was jumping to “investigate” the theory of weightlessness while riding in

an elevator while the viewer is looking at a burned elevator motor from the South Tower. After

the elevator stopped, the man thought he caused a safety brake to release. After power was lost

the elevator doors were able to be manually opened. He is remembered as being one of the last

2
On-Demand Tours | National September 11 Memorial & Museum. Accessed February 5, 2023.
https://www.911memorial.org/demand-tours.
3
Nina Simon, “Something Old, Something New”, in Art of Relevance, Santa Cruz, California Museum
2.0, 2016.
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individuals to exit the building alive. Retelling stories that are relatable to multiple age groups

strengthens the learning partnership.

This tour was filmed by a professional camera and sound crew which does a tremendous

job of keeping the journey so engaging. As Joey moved around the museum, the camera

remained steady which probably meant it was on some type of rolling device. It can be difficult

to follow a virtual tour if the imagery is out of focus or bouncing. The camera was able to

capture the magnitude of many of the large-scale artifacts like the antenna or the slurry wall that

supports the museum structure by keeping out moisture from the Hudson River. The clear sound

quality is worth mentioning as well. The tour was very easy to hear, and the close captioning was

large enough to read at the bottom of the screen, but did not obstruct the field of vision.

In analyzing the components which make up a powerful and successful virtual tour, it is

important to evaluate the narrative which the docent or education representative delivers. First

Joey’s language was appropriate for all educational levels and avoided industry jargon. He spoke

with a compassionate confidence that would lead the viewer to trust the information he was

sharing. His body language was engaging, but not too theatrical. Lastly, the virtual tour did not

appear to the viewer as being scripted, but instead organized and delivered from a personal

perspective.

There are two suggestions that would make this virtual tour experience more user

friendly. First, the tour is very difficult to find on the museum website. When you search for it, a

self-guided tour comes up which is very difficult to navigate and provides no information except

that it allows you to tour each room with a 360 viewpoint. It took almost fifteen minutes to

locate the guided tour. The other suggestion for this tour would be to spend a minute outside the

building at the beginning and have the camera show the viewer the reflecting pools. During the
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tour Joey described the walls and pumps for the fountains twice. It would have been more

powerful if the viewer began the experience with that image.

Overall, the “On-Demand Virtual Museum Tour at the 9/11 Memorial & Museum” is

highly recommended for middle school age individuals and older. The tour reinforces the

museums mission statement and by presenting the 3D artifacts allows the visitor to further grasp

the magnitude of the event. On a personal level, I have been apprehensive about visiting the

museum as I am a native New Yorker and many members of my family and friends lost a friend,

sibling, daughter or parent that day. The virtual tour has somewhat prepared me for the

overwhelming emotional journey which I plan on finally taking some time in the next few

months. By reflecting on my own experience, I will be more cognizant of the emotions and

knowledge individuals bring forth to a site where I lead a tour.

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Bibliography

On-Demand Tours | National September 11 Memorial & Museum. Accessed February 5, 2023.
https://www.911memorial.org/demand-tours.

Simon, Nina “Something Old, Something New”. In Art of Relevance, Santa Cruz, California
Museum 2.0, 2016.