Ninety-nine 100-dollar bills and five 20s were slipped through a slot into a 12-inch-by-12-inch collection box sometime Tuesday evening, the New York Post reported.
"I was home watching the Yankee game when I got a call from the preview center's manager. She asked me if I was sitting down," Joe Daniels, president of the National September 11 Memorial & Museum, told the Post.
Mark Lennihan, AP
Joe Daniels, president of the National September 11 Memorial & Museum, is shown at the World Center Hotel overlooking the World Trade Center construction site in New York. The Memorial & Museum, scheduled to open in September 2011, is taking shape at the lower right. The rising tower of One World Trade Center is at the center.
"We just found $10,000 in the donation box," Daniels was told. The bills were taken to a bank and authenticated before being deposited.
About 3,000 people a day visit the preview center on Vesey Street, where they are able to see plans for a rebuilt World Trade Center. Memorial officials told the Post they think the donation was made sometime between 5 and 7 p.m., but after looking at surveillance video they were unable to determine who among the hundreds of visitors during those hours might have made the contribution.
"We'd love to know who it was so we can say thank you," Daniels told the Post.
Read more at the New York Post.