El Museo del Barrio, the Manhattan museum dedicated to Latin American art, has expressed regret over renting space to a 9/11 conference at which speakers claimed the real story of the September 11 attacks has been covered up.

The museum operates out of a city-owned building on Manhattan's Upper East Side. It rented its space to organizers of the conference, where speakers said they believed the true account of the 2001 attacks remains hidden from the public.

The rental has placed the institution in an awkward position. As a museum housed in a city-owned facility, El Museo del Barrio faces questions about its vetting process for external events and about the use of a public building for a gathering promoting claims that conflict with the documented record of the attacks.

The museum's expression of regret signals that the institution recognizes the conflict between its public-facing cultural mission and the content presented at the event it hosted. Speakers at the conference stated they felt the real story of the attacks has been covered up — a claim central to the gathering.

The episode draws attention to the broader practice of museums renting their spaces for private events, a revenue stream many institutions rely on, and the reputational risks that come when a renter's program clashes with a museum's values or public standing. For a museum operating in a building owned by the city, those risks carry additional weight, since the space is ultimately a public asset.

The controversy will likely prompt closer scrutiny of how El Museo del Barrio and comparable institutions screen prospective tenants and handle bookings that could implicate them, however indirectly, in contested political claims.