NEW YORK - Former Mayor Rudy Giuliani said Tuesday he was saddened by his successor's decision to move this year's Sept. 11 anniversary ceremony away from ground zero because the area is now a construction site.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg had said a day earlier that the remembrance would take place in a plaza off the southeast corner of the site, despite requests by some family members to keep it in its usual spot.

Giuliani said he had a great emotional attachment to where the ceremony has taken place in the past.

“I feel very bad that it's going to be moved,” he said.

Giuliani, now a presidential candidate, was mayor when the city was attacked nearly six years ago. He also was the first speaker to lead the reading of victims' names at the first anniversary remembrance, a practice that has become tradition on the somber day.

Every year, the names of the dead have been read aloud from a platform along the western edge of the lower Manhattan site. The solemn roll call paused only for moments of silence at the times the two planes hit and the buildings collapsed.

During the reading, and throughout the rest of the day, families had exclusive access to the seven-story pit that was once the basement of the twin towers, where they would lay flowers.

But this year, the city said the site is not safe for such a large public gathering. Construction on the trade center memorial and new buildings is in its early stages, so the name recitation will take place in the nearby plaza.

“Hopefully the families will participate ... but that's where it's going to be,” Bloomberg said. “We can make the area big enough. We can secure the area. It's safe.”

Some family groups that had hoped the city would compromise said they would apply for permits on Wednesday to hold their own remembrance at ground zero. They said in a statement Tuesday that they have a duty to gather at the sacred area on the day their loved ones were killed.

“But we also have a duty to participate in an authentic and meaningful ceremony and will therefore advance plans to stage our own anniversary ceremony at the site,” the statement said.

According to attorney Norman Siegel, who was representing the families, they would seek access to three areas of the site. They want to hold their own name-reading and leave flowers.

The application was to be made at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, the bi-state agency that controls the 16-acre trade center site.

Port Authority spokesman Steve Sigmund said the agency was working on ways to let family members visit the site and pay their respects, but not in the form of a separate ceremony.