The Battle For Ground Zero, Part 190

After more than 190 postings on the subject of rebuilding Ground Zero, we have come to a major accomplishment. Well, it's the start of a major accomplishment.

Tomorrow, more than 40 concrete mixer trucks are heading to Ground Zero to begin the pour for the foundation of the Freedom Tower.

Seven stories below street level and largely out of sight, an array of steel reinforcing rods — taller than the workers swarming around them — now define what will be the southeast corner of the four-foot-thick concrete wall at the tower’s core. Tomorrow, concrete is to be poured at the Freedom Tower core and at the base of the adjoining PATH terminal and transportation hub.

Nearby, deep sockets in the faceted gray bedrock await the concrete and steel footings for columns from which the tower’s perimeter walls will rise. Workers are to start setting these columns next month.

Along Church and Liberty Streets yesterday, a concrete cutter sliced through the pavement to prepare a trench for the slurry wall that will form a 70-foot-deep foundation, or “bathtub,” on the east side of the World Trade Center site. The first sections of that wall are to be poured in the next few weeks.

“In the last seven months at the site, more has been done than in the past several years,” said Anthony R. Coscia, chairman of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which owns the site.

He has a vested interest in saying so. In that same period, the authority has effectively reclaimed control over all construction at the site.

Nothing like a gratuitious slap at Larry Silverstein, who not only managed to rebuild 7WTC in short order and without the kind of nastiness seen with the management of the rest of the site by the Port Authority. Part of the problem was a lack of direction by Gov. Pataki, whose chosen designer for the master plan, Daniel Liebeskind never did anything on such a scale and whose vision for the site has been minimized in each successive redraw of the plan. The designs for the towers themselves have been farmed out to others - David Childs and SOM is doing the Freedom Tower (they did 7WTC as well), and the other towers are being done by some of the big names in the industry (Sir Norman Foster to name but one). Santiago Calatrava is designing the transit hub, and the memorial continues to be mired in problems due to costs and security concerns.

And for all that, we are finally getting foundation work done that will enable the towers to rise above the site. For this, we should be thankful.

Meanwhile, the grim task of searching for remains that may have been overlooked in the initial search period following 9/11 is continuing. The City issued a schedule of searches, and will include searching nearby buildings.

Starting this week, workers will begin searching the rooftop of the Millenium Hotel.

Once that is complete, in about two weeks, workers will move to the rooftop of 1 Liberty Plaza.

Then in December, workers will begin searching the grounds of the former St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church at 140 Liberty St. and a section of the street known as "haul road," because it was used by trucks during the original cleanup effort.

Sources who worked at the site five years ago have told The Post they expect many remains to be found at the site of the Greek church, since it was paved over after it was destroyed.

The Daily News has more on the search for remains.

Technorati: World Trade Center, WTC, Pataki, LMDC, urban policy, Freedom Tower, IFC, International Freedom Center, spitzer, silverstein, mount sinai, respiratory ailment, wtc cough, bloomberg.