At Honolulu's World War II Valor in the Pacific National Monument, thousands gathered Dec. 7 to commemorate the 69th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor and to officially dedicate the new $56 million Pearl Harbor Visitor Center.
Work on the project began in the spring of 2009 after many of the previous facility's buildings had sunk more than 2 feet into the unstable land surrounding Pearl Harbor.
Built on top of hundreds of pilings driven up to 200 feet into the ground, the new visitor facility is nearly 24,000 square feet -- more than twice the size of the original center built in 1980. The campus now features two new museum halls showcasing interactive exhibits, along with an extensively renovated movie theater showing a restored version of the 23-minute film visitors view before traveling to the USS Arizona memorial.
Other changes include the new bookstore, an education and research center, snack bar, improved restrooms and a centralized ticketing station selling admission not only for visits to the USS Arizona Memorial, but also to nearby attractions like the USS Missouri and the USS Bowfin Submarine.
One addition to the new museum's exhibitions that is attracting a lot of attention is the collection of oral histories.
"These are the survivors and the eyewitnesses describing what happened on Oahu, and they're absolutely chilling," explained Public Information Officer Eileen Martinez. "They bring tears to your eyes. It's the civilian perspective and the military perspective, but [they] also have perspective from the Japanese, something that's very new."
Built 30 years ago to accommodate around 2,000 visitors per day, the original visitor center had been welcoming closer to 4,500 people a day during the past several years. In 2009, the center welcomed 1.5 million visitors, making it Hawaii's most popular visitor attraction.
For more about Pearl Harbor, visit www.nps.gov/valr/index.htm.