The Battle For Ground Zero, Part 60

The New York Times continues to push for housing at Ground Zero. Go figure. They still don't like to announce the fact that they're in the real estate business and new office space downtown would compete with their Midtown headquarters that itself is struggling to find clients and that used both eminent domain condemnations and Liberty Bonds to be built.

And they're pointing out that the Deutsche Bank building was envisioned as being turned into residential space. Last time I checked, that building was not a part of the WTC before 9/11 and that its future was only recently decided (it will be demolished because the damage sustained in the attacks was too great to be rehabilitated.

Also, the Times casts a blind eye to the fact that 90 West Street was just reopened as a residential building. Before 9/11, that building was a major office building.

Such is the myopia of the Times these days.

A Congressional investigation into the collapse of the WTC towers and changes to building codes is going too slowly for some.

"A lot of people are impatient, understandably," said Representative Sherwood Boehlert, Republican of central New York, the chairman of the committee. "And a lot of people want action as quickly as possible."

The criticism emerged at a hearing during which the National Institute of Standards and Technology formally released its final report on the collapse of the twin towers, a $16 million study that has produced more than 10,000 pages of findings detailing exactly why the towers were able to stand after being hit by planes, but ultimately collapsed.

The study, which used computers to meticulously reconstruct the attack and the resulting fires and structural damage, also examined the evacuation of the towers and the response by the New York City Fire Department and other emergency personnel.

The report includes 30 recommendations for improving building safety, including requiring more-reliable emergency-communications systems and wider stairwells or more robustly built elevators that can be used during catastrophic emergencies to evacuate towers.

But the recommendations are not detailed enough, or sufficiently documented, to be rapidly incorporated into standard building code publications that local and state governments use to guide them in drafting local codes, the members of Congress said. Some of the code-writing officials present at the House hearing Wednesday agreed.

"N.I.S.T. has fallen short of making this a true reference manual for the protection of big buildings," said Representative Anthony D. Weiner, Democrat of Brooklyn and Queens.

Considering that there are literally hundreds of building codes around the country that are highly tailored to the specific situations encountered (earthquakes, hurricanes, flooding, ground conditions, and historical considerations), why was anyone thinking that NIST would provide a specifically tailored set of recommendations. They produced guidelines that localities would have to tailor.

"Why on earth would you expect the Landmark Center on Six Forks Road in Raleigh to have the same standards, preparation against terrorist attack, as the John Hancock Center would have?" asked Representative Brad Miller, Democrat from North Carolina, referring to his old six-story law office building in North Carolina and the iconic tower in Chicago. "It has got to be a balance of cost against risk."

Building code officials said the full array of recommendations made by the institute would most likely add a few percent to the cost of designing and building new towers. But so far, officials of the institute have not recommended which buildings might merit having the more stringent requirements.

7WTC has been built to much higher standards than any other structure in NYC, which added to its cost - and that has translated into higher rental costs. We're going to see a similar effect when the Freedom Tower is finally built.

Meanwhile, Gov. Pataki wants to make sure that some of the nearly $1 billion MTA surplus is spent on projects in Lower Manhattan. That's all well and good, but let's make sure that the safety and security of the system are provided for first and foremost. As we've seen over the past week, a major disruption to seven subway lines was caused by improper wiring of a single light socket.

Also, Charles Millard thinks that everyone should back off and let Silverstein do his thing and actually build stuff downtown. He's got a point. Silverstein is the only one who has actually rebuilt an entire building. Other structures that were damaged have been restored, most recently 90 West St., but Ground Zero itself remains untouched by a permanent structure. Fiterman Hall and the Deutsche Bank building remain standing despite the fact that both are so badly damaged that they need to be torn down. The Deutsche Bank building will be demolished beginning next year, but Fiterman Hall is still awaiting a disposition - and where's the Governor and Mayor standing on that issue? *crickets*

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