About 200 children, grouped in pairs, will read the names accompanied by music. Each child will read about 14 names. Many of the children have lost relatives in the attack, although it is not clear whether all 200 will be victims' relatives, said a spokesman for Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
Bloomberg said the date has become synonymous with not only great sorrow, but also courage and resilience, and should focus on the future.
``In keeping with that, we will ask our children to take the lead in the ceremony,'' Bloomberg said. ``It is in them that the spirit of our city lives on.''
The ceremony will begin Sept. 11 at 8:30 a.m. at the trade center site. There will be a moment of silence at 8:46 a.m., when the first jetliner struck the north tower, and three other breaks in the reading of 2,792 names to mark the times when the south tower was struck, and when each tower collapsed.
Last year, it took 2 1/2 hours for 197 readers to complete the list of victims' names.
Families will be allowed to walk around the site and leave flowers and other mementos.
The ``Tribute in Light,'' twin beams of light that are beamed skyward to evoke the twin towers, will be switched on at sunset. The tribute, which was turned on nightly for several weeks in spring 2002, will be repeated on each Sept. 11 to come, city officials said.
Bloomberg and Gov. George Pataki will be joined at the ceremony by New Jersey Gov. James McGreevey and former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani.
