The Rebuilding of Ground Zero, Part 73

This shouldn't come as a surprise. The delayed deconstruction of the former Deutsche Bank building is going to cost another $100 million.

Continuing delays in the deadly task of taking down the Deutsche Bank tower at Ground Zero have driven up the cost of rebuilding the World Trade Center by an estimated $100 million, sources familiar with the two projects told The Post.

The former 42-story bank tower, heavily damaged by the toppled Twin Towers on 9/11 and filled with toxins, will take nearly three years longer than originally planned to clean and remove. It's now slated to be done sometime next spring.

While the building does not sit in the trade center site, its property is slated to be the location for key infrastructure, including a vehicle screening center, that must be in place in order to finish the office towers and transit hub.

The Port Authority recently allocated an extra $6.5 million to build a temporary wall next to the building so that some work could begin before the entire tower is removed, hopefully speeding up some of the crucial construction.

The delays on that portion of the site means that other infrastructure within Ground Zero proper is delayed. That affects schedules and increases costs for construction.

You can blame incompetence, mismanagement, and negligence on the part of those responsible for overseeing the deconstruction of the damaged building, including the LMDC and the contractors - John Galt Company.

Meanwhile, State Senator Bill Perkins is expected to hold a town hall meeting next month to go over the slow pace of construction at Ground Zero. Expect the Port Authority to get quite defensive about that, and they'll be sure to trot out the fact that they met many of their benchmarks for the quarter ending July 1. The Port Authority would hope that people ignore that the Port Authority incurred significant penalties for failing to turn over portions of the site running along Greenwich and Church to Larry Silverstein until a few days ago. Or, that the foot-dragging on the demolition of Fiterman Hall and the former Deutsche Bank building has gone on for years.

The Freedom Tower is making headway in fits and starts, and one need only look at the gleaming skyscrapers that rose just outside Ground Zero after Ground Zero was prepared for new construction. A new residential tower is being fitted out with glass just south of the former Deutsche Bank building, and the Goldman Sachs building diagonally across from the Freedom Tower (1WTC) is nearly finished as well. Both buildings were started well after the cornerstone for the Freedom Tower, and yet both will be completed and occupied well before.

That's absolutely inexcusable.

UPDATE:
Photos of Ground Zero, with the Freedom Tower (1WTC) as seen from the Vesey Street Bridge across West Street from earlier today. The first photo shows just how close 1WTC runs to West Street and the progress made to date:

 

 

 

This last photo is of the crowd that gathers in a break in the corrugated metal blocking views of Ground Zero. It's where I took the two previous photos, which show one of the immense steel girders encased in concrete that will form the base of the exterior wall of 1WTC and the core of the tower slowly inching its way skyward. The photo before that shows the 9/11 Memorial/Museum steel deck that runs flush to street level. It's hoped that the 9/11 Memorial/Museum will be open in time for the 10th anniversary.

 

All the photos were taken using my Canon Rebel XTi with the Tamron 28-300mm XR Di VC (image stabilizer).