Looking down at the 9/11 Memorial from the top of 1 WTC (Jake Dobkin/Gothamist).

Never forget...to beef up your servers. That's the message the cash-strapped 9/11 Memorial and Museum learned this morning when it let the public at its new ticket reservation system. "Due to a large volume of requests, some people are unable to come into the site and make reservations," memorial spokesman Michael Frazier said today. "But many people have been able to get in."

"We encourage people to be patient and try again later in the day," Frazier also said. Which is good advice! Just two hours after the free tickets became available at 9 a.m., the reservation website appears to be back up to speed. The memorial, which unlike the museum planned to open next year, is free to the public. However the powers that be have decided that reservations are required as a means to keep order amongst the expected throngs of visitors.

The memorial opens on September 11th, 2011 to victims' family members and will open to the general public on September 12th.