Britain’s Prince Harry to visit New York, see the WTC site, play polo, and visit Harlem

Britain’s Prince Harry to visit New York

LONDON — Prince Harry will travel to New York City this month on a high profile trip that will include a visit to ground zero and a charity polo match.

It will be the first time the 24-year-old royal has traveled to the United States since the death of his mother, Princess Diana, in Paris on Aug. 31, 1997.

The trip also will be Harry’s first formal overseas engagement outside Britain. He has frequently traveled abroad, but this will be the first time he officially represents Britain’s royal family on such a trip.

It is in part intended to help ease the prince into his royal role, St. James’s Palace announced.

He is to begin the two-day trip with a visit to the World Trade Center site on May 29. The next day, he will take part in a charity polo match — the Veuve Clicquot Manhattan Polo Classic — on Governor’s Island to raise cash for the U.S arm of his Lesotho-based charity, Sentebale.

Harry’s trip will include a visit to Harlem’s Children’s Zone, a nonprofit community-focus organization that has operated since the 1970s. Accompanying him will be Prince Seeiso of Lesotho, the co-founder of Harry’s charity.

The third in line to the British throne will attend a naming ceremony for the British Memorial Garden in Hanover Square, which commemorates the British victims of the Sept. 11 attacks, and visit the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Manhattan to meet with wounded veterans.

Harry also is scheduled to attend a private reception in support of New York’s British interests.