If a fire had broken out in the Trump SoHo building, the site of a construction accident that left one person dead this week, firefighters would have been unable to access one of the standpipes to carry water to the upper floors, according to detailed list of fire safety violations at the site that was obtained by The New York Sun yesterday.Despite these findings, the City wants to cut back on the inspection schedule for construction sites. How many people are needlessly put in jeopardy because of that policy? The city should be increasing its work-site inspections, not decreasing them during times of economic growth because of the possibilities that workers are cutting corners and that companies are not using safe work practices including putting workers who are inexperienced into positions that pose hazards to themselves and others.
After the accident Monday, Department of Buildings inspectors issued the violations to a general construction contractor, Bovis Lend Lease, the same company that is under criminal investigation after a broken standpipe in the former Deutsche Bank building led to the death of two firefighters six months ago.
The standpipe carries water from firefighters' hoses to upper floors in the event of a fire.
In the August incident, the standpipe had been broken off in the basement of the building and exits were blocked, leaving firefighters battling a blaze with insufficient water and few escape routes out of the toxic ground zero building.
Meanwhile, work continues at Ground Zero as a series of controlled explosions will take place today to speed along the excavations at the site. Here are some more photos of the site taken within the last few weeks. Construction is proceeding for the Freedom Tower, along with the bathtub work along the South and East side of where 3 and 4 WTC are to be built.
UPDATE:
If you were expecting the Fulton Street Terminal to be build by 2008, you've got another thing coming. You're not going to see construction completed until 2010 at the earliest. Nice. That's the MTA for you. Actually, given that this is the MTA, expect the budget to soar, and the one redeeming architectural feature to be squashed like a bug.
UPDATE:
The Survivors Staircase is about to begin the slow process of being relocated from its current position (where Tower 2 is to rise) to the 9/11 Memorial.
In August, Avi Schick, the chairman of the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, proposed to extract the staircase whole from the surrounding concrete bulkhead, then reinstall it in the National Sept. 11 Memorial and Museum at ground zero.UPDATE 1/18/2008:
Preparations are under way to do just that.
By late February, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which owns the site, expects to build a steel framework beneath the five-foot-wide staircase.
That will permit workers to isolate the stairs from the rest of the remaining Vesey Street structure, which includes a fragment of terrazzo paving from the Tobin Plaza, a sloping surface where two escalators once ran and an entrance to the Cortlandt Street station on the No. 1 subway line, which has been closed since 2001.
Besides the staircase, workers will salvage part of the plaza pavement. A plywood barrier and several columns from the subway station will be taken to Hangar 17 at Kennedy International Airport, where large-scale 9/11 artifacts are kept.
The rest of the structure will be demolished.
“You have to do it with an extraordinary amount of care,” said Stephen Sigmund, chief of public and government affairs at the Port Authority.
Once the staircase is atop its steel cradle, it will be jacked up and rolled to Vesey Street. It will stand opposite the small park outside 7 World Trade Center until it is lowered by crane to the museum’s principal floor, almost at bedrock.
The Port Authority has announced that they will be conducting more controlled blasts at Ground Zero to prepare the site for foundation work.
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