NEW YORK — A dispute between Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Gov. Andrew Cuomo over the $1 billion museum at ground zero has dragged on for so long that the museum will not open in time for the 11th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks — or even for the next one.
Aides to Bloomberg and Cuomo have so far been unable to resolve their differences over which government agencies will pay the operating costs of the museum, which is intended to document the terrorist attacks of 2001 and honor the nearly 3,000 victims. The two sides also remain at odds over who will have oversight of the museum and the surrounding memorial.
The negotiations are further complicated because Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey must sign off on any agreement before it can take effect.
Cuomo and Christie together control the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which owns the World Trade Center site. Bloomberg is chairman of the Sept. 11 foundation, which controls the National September 11 Memorial and Museum, and oversees commemorative events at the site.
With work on the museum at a standstill for nearly a year, fundraising and donations have fallen. Exhibits are gathering dust in fabrication shops in Buffalo, N.Y., and Santa Fe, N.M., according to museum executives.
The delay means that the museum might not open before construction on 1 World Trade Center is finished in early 2014.
Aides to Bloomberg and Cuomo said they hoped that the 11th anniversary, on Tuesday, might create pressure for a last-minute deal. Last week, the two sides circulated proposals to resolve the yearlong impasse.
Still, earlier agreements have fallen apart.
“It would be catastrophically sad if they can’t find a solution,” said Ira Millstein, a board member of the Sept. 11 foundation and a prominent commercial lawyer. “They really ought to sit down in a room and look at each other. It can’t be solved with e-mails.”
Other members of the board, whose relatives died in the attacks, said they would hold a demonstration Monday if the officials did not break the deadlock.
Bloomberg and Cuomo tried to bridge their differences last month when they agreed to establish an advisory committee to address disputes over the memorial, the museum and access to the site. But then a new dispute erupted over how much money the foundation would contribute to the museum’s operating costs, and the plan for the advisory committee has not moved forward.
Last week, in a break with custom, Cuomo and Christie did not attend the foundation’s annual fundraising dinner at Cipriani Wall Street, where the comedian Stephen Colbert was the host.
Port Authority officials bought a table for the event but hesitated to attend because they were concerned about the reception they would receive from foundation executives, given the looming anniversary and the tensions over the negotiations, according to authority and foundation officials.
Late last week, foundation board members said they were trying to step up pressure on Bloomberg and Cuomo officials to resolve the impasse once and for all.
“People walk up to the doors of the museum, and the doors are locked,” said Christine Ferer, a board member whose husband, Neil D. Levin, the executive director of the Port Authority, died in the attack. “Locked inside is the full story of 9/11.”
