Mayor Giuliani said yesterday he was saddened by his successor’s decision to move this year’s September 11 anniversary ceremony away from ground zero because the area is now a construction site.

Mayor 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.

Mr. 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.

Mr. Giuliani, now a presidential candidate, 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,” Mr. 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 today to hold their own remembrance at ground zero. They said in a statement yesterday 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.