The Rebuilding of Ground Zero, Part 68

Once again, deconstruction at the former Deutsche Bank building has come to a screeching halt. Smoke conditions have brought things to a halt for the second time this week. Among the incidents in the past week: a overheated battery on a forklift and a fire set by a worker using a blowtorch. In the case of the overheated battery, workers attempted to use a fan to vent the smoke, but it malfunctioned. Firefighters tested and confirmed the switch didn't work, and slapped a stop work order on the site.

For the second time in a week, the FDNY responded to a call of smoke at 130 Liberty St., the cursed skyscraper ruined on 9/11.

It turned out the smoke was from a battery-powered forklift that overheated around 4 a.m. Firefighters simply unplugged it.

Workers at the site hit an air switch - designed to keep smoke from getting into the building - but it malfunctioned.

Firefighters and Buildings Department workers tested the switch and confirmed it wasn't working, and a stop-work order was issued.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2009/06/09/2009-06-09_demolition_of_curse_deutsche_bank_building_halted_once_again.html#ixzz0Hy1idnGD&C

Meanwhile, construction at the rest of Ground Zero continues chugging along at a snail's pace and the confab designed to get construction moving on the office towers hasn't resulted in any new deals, primarily because everyone is squabbling over who should pay and who should pony up the lines of credit (the same issue that has been dogging the rebuilding for months).

UPDATE:
Curbed has renderings of the 9/11 Memorial Museum, and notes that the museum is reaching out to families to spell check names that will be inscribed in the memorial. It includes a collage of photos of all the victims from both the 1993 and 2001 terrorist attacks. A room will rotate through displays of all the victims - spending three minutes each. It would take a visitor six continuous days to sit through all the victims.

In front of the portrait walls, visitors would find display consoles with tabletop visual interfaces that promise to work somewhat like an iPhone, with fingertip navigation. These displays would permit visitors to delve into an individual victim’s life. The effect would be a kind of expanded, multimedia version of the “Portraits of Grief” series that The New York Times presented after the attacks.

“We have to address the scale of loss,” Ms. Greenwald said. “Three thousand is a number that’s hard to fathom, so you have to personalize it.”

Visitors would then enter an inner chamber, a mini-theater with benches, where audiovisual tributes would be shown of each victim. These presentations would consist principally of recorded recollections — “not overly maudlin, overly sentimentalized or highly depressing,” Ms. Greenwald said, “but like sitting around with your cousins, talking about someone at the Thanksgiving table.”