Updated

A 25-ton, bronze sphere ripped open by the collapsing World Trade Center is returning to a spot overlooking the rebuilt site.

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey on Thursday approved plans to move the Koenig (KOO'-neeg) Sphere from its temporary place in Battery Park at Manhattan's southern tip. The sculpture will grace the new Liberty Park overlooking the 9/11 memorial. No date has yet been set for the move.

The sphere once stood between the trade center's two towers.

German artist Fritz Koening created the work commissioned by the Port Authority, which lost 84 employees. It was dedicated in Battery Park in 2002, with an eternal flame honoring the more than 2,700 people who died at the trade center a year earlier.