The Battle For Ground Zero, Part 46

9/11 families continue to hammer away at the IFC. Yesterday, they were busy lambasting the LMDC for not undertaking a search of alternative locations to site the IFC should the IFC and 9/11 families fail to reach an accord on content.

Here's a thought. Just how many people are really interested in what the IFC has to offer? Was there ever a need? This is a brand new group, with a real old agenda (blaming America first), and the Ground Zero site would have been its home. Why? Because someone (hey Gov. Pataki, here's looking at you kid) decided that cultural groups should be located at the site even though there were already a bunch of competing interests that conflict with each other. The LMDC took up the task and that became part of the master plan, which Libeskind won. That plan has been altered heavily since it won, and everything from where the tower will be located to how much office space will be restored has been tweaked, adjusted, or just plain revised.

What hasn't changed is the revulsion that people have towards the IFC. If anything, that sentiment has grown since Debra Burlingame first brought people's attention to the issue.

Also, Mayor Bloomberg finally waded into the issue with the following:

Earlier yesterday, Mayor Bloomberg called the IFC "problematic" and said it should be scrapped if agreement can't be reached over its mission.

"I think what we have to understand is that this is just not a normal location where you can put a cultural institution and have the cultural institution have total freedom to do anything they want," Bloomberg said.

So far, Sen. Schumer and AG Spitzer have yet to commit to a position. The Post editorial board noticed as well. The New York Times? Not so much, though readers definitely had some interesting comments on the Times stated positions. And they weren't flattering to say the least.

Meanwhile, Fire Marshals arrested a man who was involved in a controversial 9/11 charity group:

Michael Bellone, 51, the embattled founder of Trauma Response Assistance for Children, was charged with grand larceny, criminal impersonation and possession of stolen property after being questioned at the FDNY's Brooklyn headquarters.

Among the items he allegedly had in his possession were a Scott air-tank, harness, regulator and mask from the FDNY's Mask Service Unit.

It was unclear whether Bellone — a former grocery-store worker from Brooklyn — is suspected of taking the items from Ground Zero when he volunteered there as a rescue worker after 9/11.

Last year, he had been warned by fire officials to stop claiming ties to the FDNY and dressing in its uniform after he and two others posed as New York City firefighters in a 9/11 ceremony in Nevada with that state's governor.

Also, the 1993 WTC bombing trial plods along as Port Authority employees were grilled on the stand.

Neither Peter Goldmark nor Stephen Berger were in charge when a terrorist bomb tore through the basement of the World Trade Center in 1993.

But they read vulnerability assessments and still allowed cars in the parking garage, a lawyer charged in state Supreme Court yesterday.

Day two of the long-awaited trial of the Port Authority featured a round of testy testimony as the former executive directors tried to deflect charges that the agency was negligent and liable in the blast that killed six and injured nearly 1,000 people.

Berger, who left the agency three years before the attack, was especially miffed at the suggestion that the Port Authority put profits above personal safety by refusing to close the underground parking lot to transient traffic.

UPDATE:
Fixed technorati placement in quote.

UPDATE:
It's all over but the whining. Gov. Pataki has killed the IFC's hopes of being at Ground Zero.

New York -AP, Sept. 28, 2005) - Gov. George Pataki on Wednesday ousted a proposed freedom museum from its site at ground zero, declaring that the International Freedom Center has generated “too much opposition, too much controversy” to remain.

The decision follows months of acrimony over the Freedom Center, with furious families and politicians saying that the museum would dishonor the memory of the 2,749 people who died at the World Trade Center.

“We must move forward with our first priority, the creation of an inspiring memorial to pay tribute to our lost loved ones and tell their stories to the world,” Pataki said in a statement.

The only ones other than the IFC who will be upset over this will be the editorial board of the New York Times.

Technorati: World Trade Center, WTC, Pataki, LMDC, urban policy, Freedom Tower, IFC, International Freedom Center.