Mark Lennihan / AP

David Bowser, left, and his son D.J. Bowser visit the National September 11 Memorial on Thursday in New York. The memorial has seen a million visitors since the site opened to the public in September.

Work on a planned museum at the World Trade Center has ground to a halt because of a financial dispute, and there is now no possibility it will open on time next year, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Thursday.

The underground museum commemorating victims of the 9/11 attacks was scheduled to open in September on the 11th anniversary of the disaster, a year after the opening of a memorial at the site that has already drawn 1 million visitors.

Related: Tourist held after trying to check gun at WTC site

But in recent months, the National September 11 Memorial & Museum foundation has been fighting with the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey over who is responsible for paying millions of dollars in infrastructure costs related to the project.

The Port Authority, which owned the trade center and is building the museum, claims that the foundation owes it $300 million. The foundation claims that the authority actually owes it $140 million, because of delays in the project.

The dispute has been simmering for some time, and some details of the work slowdown were reported in November, but Thursday marked the first time that the mayor and other officials have acknowledged that the fight would mean the museum will not open in 2012.

"There is no chance of it being open on time. Work has basically stopped," Bloomberg said. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said on a recent radio program that the Port Authority was "on the verge" of suing the foundation, but both the mayor and the Port Authority said Thursday that negotiations over the matter continue.

"I'm sure we are going to work something out with the Port Authority," Bloomberg said. "They've got a difficult budget situation. I'm sympathetic to that."

Despite security hurdles and ongoing construction, tourists from around the world have already made the memorial at the site a regular stop on their visits to New York City. Since it opened to the public Sept. 12, more than 1 million people have visited the memorial plaza, officials said.

The site now draws about 10,000 visitors a day, which would put it on pace to match or exceed the 3.5 million who visit the Statue of Liberty and Empire State Building annually.

Tourists — some reverent, some just there to gawk — have long been a staple at ground zero, but until this summer the closest they could get were the high fences that ringed a bustling construction zone where the twin towers once stood.

Negotiating fences and legions of construction workers is still part of any trip to the memorial. All visitors must reserve free tickets in advance and pass through a security screening. But the hurdles haven't stopped people from coming. Memorial officials said visitors have hailed from all 50 states and 120 countries.

Anthoula Katsimatides, a memorial board member whose brother, John, was killed at the trade center, said the attention is welcome.

"It truly touches my heart and reaffirms the importance of this memorial to know a million people have already come here to honor and pay respects to my brother and the thousands of other loved ones who died in the attacks," she said in a written statement.

Visitors to the site today can walk on a tree-covered plaza and see the two massive pools that sit in the footprints of the fallen towers. Each pool is ringed by waterfalls, and a parapet engraved with the names of the nearly 3,000 people who died on 9/11 and in a 1993 bomb attack.

Visitors can also get a close-up look on construction of One World Trade Center, now 90 stories high and on its way to being the nation's tallest building.

The original design for the rebuilt trade center included four other office towers, a transit hub and a performing arts center, as well as the memorial and museum.

Two towers and the transit hub are under construction. On Thursday, the memorial foundation set up a board of directors for the planned performing arts center, for the first time. The board includes trade center developer Larry Silverstein, Disney executive Zenia Mucha and Brookfield Properties co-chair John Zuccotti.

More than $100 million was set aside for the center by a downtown rebuilding agency and architect Frank Gehry was hired to design it, but private fundraising never began. Only one of four arts organizations originally chosen to anchor the center is still planning on moving in and officials say construction wouldn't begin for several years.

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Let it snow: words that skiers and employees of resorts around the country are fervently repeating as flakes resist falling on slopes from California to New England.

“It’s been a slow start for us,” said Ethan Austin, spokesman at Sugarloaf Mountain in Maine, the largest ski area east of the Rockies. The resort had little snowfall in December, so they’ve been relying on snow-making equipment to keep their slopes open, Austin said.

“Right now we don’t have a whole lot in terms of natural snow, around 25 to 30 inches,” he said. “That’s quite a bit below average.” The resort currently has 28 trails open; 65 to 70 open trails is typical for this time of year.

Across the country, at Mammoth Mountain Ski Area in California, the snowmakers are on as well, said spokeswoman Joani Lynch. “We are, safe to say, off to a slow start.”

It’s all the more painful for skiers spoiled by the 2010-2011 ski season’s bumper crop of snow, which broke records at some resorts. “We have 1 to 2 feet right now, mostly man-made snow,” Lynch said. “We had a very, very dry December -- just 2 inches. We got 200 inches last year just in December.”

The economic impact of low snowfall may not be significant for many destination resorts, because most, especially in the West, have invested heavily in snow-making machines that do a decent job, said Ralf Garrison, director and senior industry analyst at the Mountain Travel Research Program in Colorado. Most resorts have also worked at expanding non-slope activities such as dining and entertainment options, from spas to ice skating to nightlife, making it easier to entertain guests when snow is low.

“The economic salvation of the mountain resort industry is based on destination guests who travel from afar and make reservations significantly in advance,” Garrison said. “If there’s an adequate man-made [snow] product, destination guests find that adequate.”

Michael Berry, president of the National Ski Areas Association, said that while many resorts are relying on man-made snow, ski areas in Arizona, New Mexico and southern California are doing well, which is almost an inversion of the normal pattern for this time of year. Ski areas in other parts of the country have had four or five years in a row of adequate to great snow, so most will be able to wait for a big dump or two to kick-start the slow beginning of this season, he said.

“This is not the first time nor will it be the last to have this happen,” Berry said. “We’re a weather dependent industry.”

At Mount Bachelor in central Oregon, a storm forecast for mid-week and New Year's weekend is raising hopes the season might be turning around.

“With this storm coming through, we’re getting rain at bottom and snow at top and accumulating,” said Mount Bachelor marketing director Andy Goggins. “That’s where we’re fortunate to have the tallest resort peak in the Cascades at 9,000 feet. We’re just crossing our fingers it will cool off more.”

Luckily, they’ve been able to maintain a consistent level of snow, Goggins said. “We’ve had a 3-foot snowpack for the month of December and only lost a couple of inches. We have a lot of acres open.”

But it’s nothing like last season, he added wistfully: “We got pretty spoiled last year with all the snow. At this date last year, we had a 77-inch base depth, compared to 32 inches now.”

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