The Battle For Ground Zero, Part 131

Construction for the Freedom Tower is progressing as utility work at bedrock levels 65 feet below the street level have been ongoing since March 28. That's when contractors began the task of rerouting PATH tracks and various utilities to prepare the area for the enventual foundations for the Freedom Tower.

Before the tower's foundation work can begin, engineers and construction workers are relocating the train signaling system for the World Trade Center PATH station, the power system supplying electrical current to the tracks, the water pipes that lead to fire stanchions and the steel conduit providing compressed air to operate the track switches.

If left in place, these utilities would block the Freedom Tower's massive steel support columns and their concrete footings.

"This is the beginning of a five-year process, the first of many, many steps, as we build block upon block upon block in a very tight time frame," Mr. Silverstein said in an interview.

Under a new rebuilding plan put in place last month, he will no longer serve as the developer or control the tower's 2.6 million square feet of office space. Instead, he will be paid a 1 percent fee to build it under the supervision of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, and then turn over the keys to the agency, which will lease, manage and own it.

"This will be the icon of the New York skyline and will reaffirm our resilience and resolve," Mr. Silverstein commented, "and it absolutely must be built." And so the work goes on, long before dawn, in times of sparse ridership, when trains can be diverted from the site.

"It's a chess game," said Gary Cohen, a senior project manager for Tishman Construction, which is overseeing the work.

The access time is limited by a tight construction schedule: weekdays from 1 to 5 a.m. and weekends from 1 a.m. on Saturday until 5 a.m. on Monday.

And so, shortly after 1 a.m. last Thursday, Vin Caposello, a power railman with PATH, carefully touched the prongs of a voltage tester to the third rail to verify that it had been cut off in the work area. "But our rule is that you always treat the third rail as if it's live," Mr. Caposello said, "since touching it is most likely fatal."

Then, in a claustrophobic area under the former trade center parking garage, workers for Tishman and its subcontractor, Petrocelli Electric, began gingerly stepping over the third rail. At the work space, they began to put the new utilities in place, using saws, jackhammers and drills. The installation of the new system and the deactivation of the old is expected to be finished in August.

During this time, the all-night PATH trains from New Jersey are arriving through the south tunnel under the Hudson, on Track 4, and leaving on the same track, instead of making their customary loop through the return tunnel. This affords workers safe access to the northern tracks.

Meanwhile, the NY Post notes that the construction in and around Ground Zero will require tremendous coordination to make sure that schedules are adhered to and the local residents are not overly impacted.

The plan will coordinate the arrival of 3,000 concrete trucks a month, delivery of enough steel to build the Empire State Building six times over and the arrival of 7,000 construction workers every day.

"Lower Manhattan's resurgence is being forged in concrete and steel," said Gov. Pataki, adding that the projects will "ensure that downtown is positioned as the premier 21st-century central business district."

Altogether, $20 billion of construction will take place downtown over the next six years. The World Trade Center, PATH station and the 9/11 Memorial and Museum alone will account for half of that construction budget.

"It's unprecedented," said City Councilman Alan Gerson, a Democrat representing lower Manhattan whose primary concern is having an independent monitor to watch for potential environmental problems from all the work. Gerson said he's considering action by the City Council to get such an independent monitor.

Much has been made about the 10 million square feet of office space that will be built, but developers are busy with a residential boom that will boost downtown's population by 40 percent over the next four years during the height of construction.

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