"Some people say I'm selling death," said Douglas Sutton, who sells $5 caps and other tourist fare near the platform that offers a view of the 6½-hectare site. "I say I'm selling history."

It is turning out to be the most lucrative job of his life, he says with a grin, and there's no prospect of it slowing down. As a former postal worker, he once earned $25 (U.S.) an hour, a little under $200 a day. Now, he's clearing $1,000 a day on average, a figure that hardly seems exaggerated standing near his stall. Over a half-hour period yesterday, a steady stream of tourists handed him at least $500 for caps, key chains, T-shirts and the $15 "towers of light memorial flame," all made in China.

"You can make $200,000 or more a year down here," he said, a figure that the other seven-day-a-week vendors confirmed, boasting of incomes ranging from $500 to $1,500 a day. "It's the best job I've ever had, and everyone can do it. We've got people we call weekend warriors who make $600 a day, easy."

He's by no means alone. The New York Post reported yesterday that one of Sept. 11's iconic figures is charging $911 these days for a two-hour interview. Edward Fine, the New Jersey consultant who was photographed emerging from a cloud of dust, told the Post that he now charges for interviews to make up for the time it takes away from his business.

"I ask for $500 an hour; for two it's $911 -- and yes, there is a significance to that sum," he told the newspaper.

The profit-making is by no means limited to New York.

Tupperware is calling for a "global party day," The Wall Street Journal reported, in which neighbours would gather at homes to "celebrate and cherish time with family, friends and neighbours." And perhaps buy some plastic products while they're at it.

Florida businessman Kingsley Barham is printing trading cards for collectors around the world, hoping for as much as $500,000 in profit from the venture.

Half a world away, steel-recycling mills in Malaysia and India are among those who are melting and recycling the steel removed from ground zero.

It is to be melted in with other scrap metal, creating huge coils that will be sold to companies to make everything from street lamps to refrigerators.

"What is there to be sentimental about?" Thamarav Selvan, a worker at the Megasteel mill in Banting, Malaysia, told Associated Press. "Scrap is scrap."

Around ground zero yesterday, as thousands of people snapped up commemorative keepsakes before the anniversary of the tragedy, others acknowledged that some might be turning the attacks into into a crass money-making opportunity.

Rhode Island tourist Janice Cirelli said she didn't like the acrylic paperweights with images of the twin towers floating in the middle, the key chains or the baseball caps. "I don't like it. Some people are trying to just make money off of this."

But as she spoke, she reached into her wallet to buy her seventh commemorative book, for $20. "These are books," she insisted. 67"It's different."

At his table, Mr. Sutton counted change as he spelled out his own rule for 9/11: The entrepreneurialism must be tasteful. He turned his nose up at what was on offer further down the block -- Osama bin Laden toilet paper, $3 a roll.

He said Mr. Fine's efforts to make a buck for retelling his escape are also a bit much.

"That's kind of morbid, asking for $911," he said. "He should ask for $500."