(Bovis) Lend Lease Admits Fraud, Avoids Criminal Charges

Lend Lease (formerly known as Bovis Lend Lease) admitted to bilking major clients out of tens of millions of dollars by overcharging on projects around the New York City metro area. It will be fined $56 million, but only one person will go to jail despite the widespread practice.

You might have heard of a few of the projects on which Lend Lease worked (or is working): Citifield, the World Trade Center reconstruction, the demolition of the former Deutsche Bank building (where a fire killed two firefighters due to lack of fire suppression equipment being active in the building and corruption/negligence among those deconstructing the building) and renovations at Grand Central Terminal.

The practice that led to the overbilling is so widespread in the construction business that it has a name: eight plus two. Behind the fraud was James Abadie, 55, who faces up to 20 years in prison plus fines:

At the heart of the overbilling scheme is a practice that investigators contend — and many construction executives concede — is so widespread that it even has a name: eight plus two. The company, Lend Lease, routinely paid labor foremen for one or two hours of overtime every day that they never worked, according to court papers. The payments were an incentive for the more skilled foremen to stay on a project while the company billed clients for their fictitious labor.

In announcing the charges and what she called the largest construction-fraud settlement in New York City history, Loretta E. Lynch, the United States attorney in Brooklyn, suggested that the conduct went beyond Lend Lease, saying the investigation was continuing and “encompasses the wider part of the industry.”

The scheme carried out by the company defrauded government agencies and private developers of about $19 million, much of it tax money, Ms. Lynch said at a news conference. She was joined by officials from several other agencies to announce a deferred-prosecution agreement.

But the amount is most likely far higher because prosecutors said they believed that Lend Lease conducted the practice for decades and that it extended to other companies.

Indeed, in a sign of the extent of the corruption, the public-works projects on which Lend Lease admitted billing city, state and federal agencies for fictitious work included the new federal courthouse in Brooklyn, where the charges against the company and its former leader were filed.

The projects also included the renovation of Ms. Lynch’s offices in Brooklyn and the demolition of the Deutsche Bank building at ground zero, where a blaze in 2007 killed two firefighters.

During the three-year inquiry, investigators pored over more than a million documents and conducted hundreds of interviews, said Jan K. Fedarcyk, an assistant Federal Bureau of Investigation director, who spoke at the news conference with Ms. Lynch and the inspector of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, Robert Van Etten.

Prosecutors say that Lend Lease had changed its practices by the time it began working on the September 11th Memorial, but the fact remains that only Abalie will see the inside of a jail cell. Others were involved in the practices, and there was a culture that encouraged these actions.

The overbilling involved the following projects:

the United States Post Office/Bankruptcy Court in Brooklyn, New York; the Bronx Criminal Courthouse in the Bronx, New York; Grand Central Terminal; the Deutsche Bank building deconstruction in New York, New York; CitiField in Queens, New York; and the very United States Courthouse in which Bovis was charged and Abadie pled guilty this morning.

The fraud extended beyond mere overbilling. The company contended that it met terms of women and minority participation on construction projects, but it never did. The company merely shifted around its own workforce to suit its needs:

The government said the company also duped the states of New York and New Jersey into believing it had complied with programs designed to boost the participation of small construction companies and companies owned by women or minorities on public construction projects when it had not.

Although New Jersey eliminated its minority and women-owned portion of its program in 2003, obligations incorporated into contracts for public construction projects remained intact, court papers said.

As an example of how minority hiring requirements were dodged, prosecutors described an instance in which Lend Lease US Construction falsely claimed that a company certified as a minority hiring unit would perform 100 per cent of the general contract work on construction at the Bronx Criminal Courthouse.

In reality, Lend Lease US Construction performed most of the work itself by directly managing the union, the government said.

It said the company placed many of its long-term union employees on the minority-hiring compliant company's payroll, hired other workers and relegated the smaller company's role to providing paycheques for work performed by or at the direction of Lend Lease US Construction employees.

These practices also point to the reason why some projects cost as much as they do, and why cost estimates on major construction projects always seem to go overbudget. Does it address all the reasons? Not at all. But eliminating overbilling on construction projects is a start.

The Rebuilding of Ground Zero, Part 131

A group of families who lost loved ones in the 9/11 attacks are angry over plans for unidentified remains to be placed in a crypt near bedrock at the Ground Zero site. Those remains had been stored at the City's Medical Examiner's Office since the attacks, and new DNA identification technologies have helped identify some of those remains, but more than 1,000 people have never been positively identified.

There is a family group that wants the remains to be placed in an above-ground structure.

I could swear that this issue had been addressed several years ago back when the memorial design was proposed and a solution was sought for where to honor and preserve the unidentified remains, but now that the memorial is on track to open this year, those old wounds are being reopened and the raw emotions of that day will come roaring back for those who lost their loved ones in the blink of an eye without so much a a trace to bury on their own. Indeed, reports from 2005 indicated that the remains would be placed near bedrock - 70 feet below street level - in a mausoleum-like structure.

The WTC remains were originally stored in four huge refrigerated trucks near the medical examiner's office in midtown Manhattan, but they have been dried and sealed in deterioration-proof pouches.

The "Reflecting Absence" memorial plan selected for the World Trade Center site calls for the interment of unidentified human remains at the site's deepest point, 70 feet underground, in a sort of walk-in mausoleum.

Meanwhile, today marks the beginning of the manslaughter trial of three supervisors involved in the deconstruction of the former Deutsche Bank building which caught fire in 2007 and resulted in the death of two firefighters, Robert Beddia and Joseph Graffagnino.

Mitchell Alvo, Jeffrey Melofchik and Salvatore DePaola are charged with manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide in the deaths of firefighters Robert Beddia and Joseph Graffagnino in 2007.

Prosecutors say the men didn’t fix and covered up a major break in a crucial firefighting water pipe.

DePaola, Melofchik and Alvo say they didn’t realize what the pipe was, and the firefighters’ lives were endangered by many other hazards in the building. Mostly, they say they’re small-time scapegoats for a fire fueled by others’ mistakes.

The defendants were supervisors at the construction company hired to demolish the building that was irreparably damaged when the falling south tower of the World Trade Center ripped a 15-story gash into the structure on Sept. 11, 2001. The impact heavily damaged the bank building and filled it with toxic debris.

On Aug. 18, 2007, a construction worker’s discarded cigarette sparked a fire that tore through several stories of the building. Beddia, 53, and Graffagnino, 33, became trapped on the burning 14th floor. They died of smoke inhalation after their oxygen tanks ran out.

The Rebuilding of Ground Zero, Part 125

Today marks the end of the former Deutsche Bank building after years of delays, a deadly fire that resulted in two firefighters losing their lives when standpipes and other safety measures were not in place, and decontamination of the building that took much longer than expected.

The building had been damaged by falling debris from the South Tower on 9/11 and the LMDC took ownership of the property so that it could make room for the vehicle security center and another office tower for the WTC complex. It was an ongoing symbol of the failure to rebuild in a timely fashion.

Freedom Tower viewed from WTC Memorial

Good riddance.

Meanwhile, construction proceeds throughout Ground Zero and workers continue raising steel on the Freedom Tower/1WTC along with 4WTC, and Fiterman Hall is being built out as well. The Freedom Tower's glass cladding is being installed above the 25th floor level, and you begin to get a sense of how close the tower will resemble its sketches and elevation views.


The 9/11 Memorial and Museum construction continues as more trees are being planted in the memorial grove and the museum structures are being built out. The PATH transit hub is also underway.

Here's an overhead view of the construction at Ground Zero:

The Rebuilding of Ground Zero, Part 124

After years of delays, a deadly fire in which two FDNY firefighters were killed due to negligence on the part of multiple contractors and failures to properly oversee the demolition, the former Deutsche Bank building is nearly demolished.

It should be reduced to nothing more than a pile of rubble next week (sounds like I've been saying that for a while though). Currently, there are two stories above ground, and that site needs to be cleared so that the new Vehicle Security Center can be built.

The bank tower — first slated for deconstruction in 2005, when a government agency bought it to end an impasse over who would pay to take it down — is down to two stories above street level. The Lower Manhattan Development Corp. (LMDC), the agency that oversaw the $300 million dismantling, said it will be completely removed in a little over a week.

“You’re talking about the end of an era,” said Kirk Raymond of Windsor, Ontario, gazing at what’s left of the building on a visit to the trade center site. “You’re erasing the last signs of something pretty terrible.”

The delicate work of dismantling a skyscraper — referred to by its street address, 130 Liberty St. — is visible from surrounding buildings and from the street.

Tourists watched last week as a huge crane gently lowered a steel beam. Sparks flew as a welder removed the cables holding the beam.

“It was great,” said Catherine McVay Hughes, a downtown Manhattan community board officer who walked by the building last week. “It was nice to actually be able to see through the skeletal remains of 130 Liberty.”

The building's demolition had been delayed because of the discovery of hundreds of human remains fragments that prompted a more thorough search of the building and surrounding structures as well as contaminant cleanup (think asbestos and other hazards).

Tom Kaminski of WCBS 880 posted some overhead photos of the Ground Zero site, but several of the photos' captions are incorrect. The second and fourth photos show the site directly to the west of the former Deutsche Bank building - the area previously occupied by St. Nicholas Church (and where a 19th century boat was discovered last year).

The third photo is the best shot of the site as it looks south across Lower Manhattan and Ground Zero. Working clockwise from the left, you see the rising 4WTC, the former Deutsche bank building, the South and North Memorial Pool, Memorial Grove, and 9/11 Museum in the foreground with West Street and the World Financial Center on the right side of the photo. 1WTC is not visible in this photo but a sliver of 7WTC is on the right side.

UPDATE:
Ground Zero Beyond the Fence reports that the first of more than 150 bronze panels listing those murdered at Ground Zero on 9/11 is being installed this week:

When the 9/11 Memorial opens later this year, over 150 bronze panels incised with the names of every one of the nearly 3,000 victims of the 2001 and 1993 WTC terror attacks will surround the two waterfalls that flow into the Memorial pools. This week we witnessed the very first of these panels being installed on site, coincidentally 7 years to the day since the Memorial design by Michael Arad was selected. This marked an important transitional moment — this massive construction project is now personal, as it bears the names of those who perished here.

(HT: Randall Gross)

The Rebuilding of Ground Zero, Part 122

Electricians had taken it upon themselves to deck out the Freedom Tower (1WTC) with festive lights for the holiday season. They not only ran Christmas lights, but they set up several floors with blue and gold lights for Chanukah.

The last two photos show a feature of construction that one often will not find on construction jobs. The Freedom Tower has three tower cranes, with two in their familiar location at the highest locations on the rising superstructure. This third crane appears to hang precariously from the side of the tower and its sole function is to hoist concrete to complete floors and for building out the core of the tower. This crane hoists itself along the side of the tower and is a technological marvel on its own and was necessitated because of the tight construction perimeter around the building.

Meanwhile, the former Deutsche Bank buildng is nearly gone. The doomed building is nearing end of the oft-delayed deconstruction process and is no longer a malovalent hulk looming over Ground Zero. At long last the last of the damaged building surrounding Ground Zero have been removed and from here on out, rebuilding is fully the name of the game.

One would hope that in the spirit of the season that the Port Authority would finally make a deal with St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church so that the congregation can begin its own rebuilding, but that process remains mired in stony silence. The congregation's church was destroyed by the collapsing South Tower and rebuilding was not possible while the former Deutsche Bank building deconstruction was ongoing because the site was needed for staging equipment.

The Church has sued the Port Authority over the situation, and it's unfortunate that it will take yet another lawsuit to get the Port Authority to make good on its obligations here.

The Rebuilding of Ground Zero, Part 120

The former Deutsche Bank building demolition is nearly complete, as just the last three stories above street level remain. It should be completely demolished by the end of the year, which means that construction of the new vehicle security center will not be far behind. Security concerns continue to dog aspects of the project, as there are renewed calls to eliminate underground public parking because of concerns over car bombs, and the Freedom Tower was designed (and redesigned) to deal with possible car bomb and aircraft terror threats. Some have argued that the Freedom Tower's base speaks to the fear factor because of the thick reinforced concrete curtain walls designed to absorb and deflect potential bomb blasts away from the core.

The LMDC has approved funding for a new pedestrian just below Ground Zero linking Battery Park City with the Financial District. That project has been held up for a couple of years over obtaining financing and design objections.

Meanwhile, reports indicate that access to the 9/11 memorial and museum will be limited after it opens next year because of space and safety considerations. Free tickets are likely to be issued to those wishing to enter onto the grounds of the museum/memorial and the number of tickets will be limited because of the limited egress/access to the location because of the ongoing construction for the Freedom Tower and PATH terminal. That's problematic for families of victims who would want to enter the site to pay their respects to their loved ones, but for now, there's no indication that a fee will be charged. The site should remain free to all. Here's photos of some of the many items that are likely to be put on display - thousands more will remain in storage for want of space.

Yet, there's a plan being floated by the NYPD that would further limit access throughout Ground Zero in the name of security. That's sure to rankle those who want unfettered access to the museum, museum, and those who will be working at the office towers ringing the site.

Parts from the collapsed Twin Towers continue to be distributed to museums and memorials across the country, including to Baltimore, Maryland.

The LMDC is also likely to consider a request for $5 million from the Cordoba House/Park51 developers to help get that project off the ground. Considering that the LMDC mission was to spur development and reduce blight in Lower Manhattan following the attacks, the request fits the goals and objectives. Mind you that this wont stop the naysayers from making all manner of claims about how Park51 developers are taking 9/11 funds (the money isn't coming out of the 9/11 Victims Compensation Fund but from funds set aside by the federal and state governments to assist Lower Manhattan redevelopment).

The Freedom Tower (1WTC) construction continues at the ongoing pace of about 30 feet a week, and that's accompanied by ongoing concrete, fireproofing, and now by the installation of the exterior wall and window structures. The windows are being installed from the 20th floor level upwards and have nearly wrapped around the entire 20th floor in alternating segments. PPG Industries is manufacturing the glass used in the tower.

You can see the newly installed windows in the upper right corner of this overview of Ground Zero, along with the north memorial pool undergoing testing while construction of the above ground portion of the museum continues in the middle:

One interesting aspect of the construction is that there are now three tower cranes operating in the erection of the Freedom Tower. Two tower cranes are dedicated to erecting the steel components, while a third tower crane literally hangs off the side of the building in order to deliver concrete to the construction of the core and floors. The side crane hangs off the northwest side of the building at Vesey and West Street and will rise as the concrete core and floors are poured.

For a good look at how far Ground Zero has come since the attacks, here's a video showing the stark differences:



Meanwhile, the 9/11 responders have agreed to accept the $712 million settlement with New York City and other defendants. It's a drop in the bucket for compensating those who have been injured or suffered health effects, but can provide some relief for those who are dealing with illnesses that are linked with service at Ground Zero.

The Rebuilding of Ground Zero, Part 119

Work continues all around Ground Zero as the Freedom Tower (1WTC) is approaching the height of nearby 7WTC at a rate of about 3 stories per week. The steel is being erected in three story increments, which means that the tower should be nearing 900 feet by the end of the year. 4WTC, which is diagonally across from Ground Zero is also rising, but at a somewhat slower pace.

The North Memorial Pool has been filled and the waterfall curtain walls are being tested. Trees are continuing to be planted around the memorial site and will soon ring the memorial pools.

Meanwhile, the former Deutsche Bank building continues to linger as unexpected difficulties in tearing down the remaining six stories have added to the delays. The sixth floor turned out to be particularly difficult to demolish because it was a mechanical floor, and was heavily reinforced making it more difficult to tear apart.

Also, Judge Hellerstein has again delayed the due date for the Ground Zero workers compensation fund by a week to allow lawyers more time to get 95% of the class to approve the $712 million package.

In order to collect on the $712 million settlement, 95 percent of the 10,000 plaintiffs had to join up and file notarized paperwork by 11:59 Monday night.

But with just hours to go, the judge presiding over the suit issued a gag order meaning neither side could say if the threshold was hit until all the paperwork had been processed, something that could take a few more days.

Manhattan federal Judge Alvin Hellerstein cited the "huge influx" of people joining as the deadline approached saying it "taxed the capacity to process" them on time, according to the New York Post.

They now have until Thursday afternoon to finalize the paperwork, according to the New York Times.

The lawsuit was filed on behalf of thousands of workers who said they were sickened from cleaning up after the Sept. 11 attacks without proper protective gear or supervision by the city.

UPDATE:
Here's video of the tests via the NY Times:

The Rebuilding of Ground Zero, Part 118

These photos were taken October 28, 2010 from around Ground Zero.

The first shows crews working on spraying insulation on steel more than 100 feet in the air:

 

This is the new Fiterman Hall with 7WTC on the left. The building will eventually reach nine stories and they are just a few weeks away from topping out and beginning to clad the exterior.

 

This shot of the Freedom Tower (1WTC) from Church street shows that the tower is quickly approaching the height of the World Financial Center and continues climbing at a rate of more than 30 feet a week. They are assembling the steel in three story increments, and then build out the individual floors by pouring the concrete and then linking those structures with the inner core which remains mostly hidden from view.

 

This is the remains of the former Deutsche Bank building, which shows that there are just about five stories remaining before it is at ground level. This demolition cannot happen soon enough and stands in the way of building a new vehicle security center and St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church, which was destroyed by the falling Twin Towers.

 

Just beyond the security fence, you can see the fall colors of the memorial grove that has been installed at the 9/11 memorial plaza. When completed, there will be more than 400 trees in the plaza. They're just about 10% done thus far.

 

As part of the 9/11 memorial and museum, organizers included parts of the original Twin Towers. Directly underneath one of the many tower cranes that dot Ground Zero are two tridents that formed the outer skin and structure of the Twin Towers. They were recovered from Ground Zero and stored at JFK airport until the site was ready to reincorporate them. The tridents had to be installed before the rest of the museum because of their sheer size and bulk that made it all but impossible to relocate them to the site at any other point during construction.

 

The Rebuilding of Ground Zero, Part 107

The star-crossed former Deutsche Bank building will remain standing several weeks longer than the most recent anticipated finish date. The newest delay was the result of a discovery that part of the main crane disassembling the tower had a crack in it and needs to be replaced. That pushes the completed demolition until February 2011.

Meanwhile, former GOP VP candidate Sarah Palin has weighed in on the Cordoba House proposal, with a series of tweets (one of which included a mangling of refute and repudiate into "refudiate"). I'm sure that will add a whole lot of clarity to the situation. Everyone gets the gist of what she was trying to say, but the real issue is where the money is coming from. While several high profile sources include the Ford Foundation, Rockefeller Brothers, there are several disturbing links to groups that support terrorism - including Perdana Global Peace Organization. That group has links to the Turkish flotilla provocation incident where several activists engaged in violence against Israeli commandos securing the blockade against Gaza. It also has links to the virulently anti-Semitic former leader of Malaysia, Mahathir bin Mohamad.

The proposal is awaiting a decision by the Landmarks Preservation Commission, and then would need City Council approval before getting a green light to build on the site - that is if it secures the necessary funding.

Historian John Esposito thinks that this is another manifestation of Islamophobia. I don't always agree with Esposito - and think Bernard Lewis is the more accurate historian when it comes to the influences and history of Islam and its interactions with other cultures, may have got it right in that the opposition could be traced to Islamophobia.

I can't speak for others, but the financing links suggesting ties to Mahathir and Perdana are troublesome and the group should explain itself. The proposed community center was pitched as a pluralistic endeavor along the lines of the 92nd Street Y or the JCC of Manhattan, and yet these linkages are of a sort that are an affront to that. Imam Rauf should explain how and why these groups are involved.

UPDATE:
The Port Authority has released an updated FAQ on the 9/11 memorial and museum construction progress. The memorial is on schedule to be completed by the 10th anniversary next year, and the museum should be open in 2013.

UPDATE:
To make this explicitly clear, let's restate exactly what the Cordoba House will and wont be.

It will be a mosque. It will also be a community center.

It is not located at Ground Zero. It is located two blocks north and isn't in direct line of sight with Ground Zero because several taller buildings will stand in the way. It will not be the tallest building on its block.

But the real problem with the opposition is that these opponents are falling into the trap of lumping all Muslims in with the fanatics/jihadis. It's why the Bush (and now Obama) Administration tried (and continue to try) to distinguish between the jihadis and the more than 1 billion Muslims around the world. It was to avoid the appearance of a clash of civilizations.


While one can fault the "war on terrorism" as a war on a tactic instead of a clearly delineated enemy, this was done so as to avoid feeding into the jihadi sentiment.

Opponents to the Cordoba House proposal are lumping the backers of the project in with the jihadis - which will drive off those who want tolerance and mutual respect - playing right into the hands of the jihadis who would use it as proof of the righteousness of their cause.

The Rebuilding of Ground Zero, Part 104

While the hearing for the controversial Cordoba House is scheduled for next week, there are plenty of other happenings in and around Ground Zero that include a couple of lawsuits and even a little bit of positive construction news.

Let's start with the good news. Here's an updated panoramic photo from one of Ground Zero's twin memorial pools as it nears completion.

Now for the lawsuits: 

The mess with the former Deutsche Bank building demolition continues as lawsuits are again threatened over costs for the demolition. Bovis and the LMDC had agreed to wait until after the building was demolished before suing each other, but with the building now only a dozen stories tall, the lawsuit talk is again coming to the forefront. The demolition costs grew along with the delays as Bovis and other companies involved negligently operated the site and the deaths of two firefighters exposed serious problems with oversight on safety on the site.

Then, a group of victims' families are applying for certiorari to the US Supreme Court to hear their case that the City of New York must remove more than a million tons of World Trade Center debris from the Fresh Kills landfill where it was disposed following the attacks because it may still contain remains of their loved ones. They are demanding the city give it their loved ones a proper burial.

Charging that their constitutional due process and religious freedom rights have been violated, a group of families of 9/11 victims have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to force New York City to move more than a million tons of World Trade Center debris from atop a garbage heap at the Fresh Kills landfill.

The group, known as the WTC Families for Proper Burial, says it is unacceptable that even the unidentified remains of victims, mingled with the Trade Center debris, should remain atop household trash. After being rejected by a federal judge and appellate court in a lawsuit seeking to force the city to move the debris, the WTC Families filed the necessary petition for a writ of certiorari on June 1, asking the Supreme Court to decide on the case.

The city has rejected the WTC Families’ assertions as untrue, and says it intends to file a voluntary response to the petition by the Aug. 5 deadline, laying out for the justices why they should not hear the case.

While I feel for the victims' families, there is no way that the City or anyone else can move the 1 million tons or more of debris and find an acceptable location. All manner of heroic measures were taken to find the victims - nearly all of whom were pulverized by the collapsing towers and then consumed in fires that lasted for weeks following the attacks.

In one last bit of Ground Zero related news, the Queen of England will be here today. She will be stopped at Ground Zero to pay her respects along with a stop at the UN and to visit with rescue workers who were at Ground Zero in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks.

Hope she likes Baked Apple since the temps in New York are going to top 100 degrees today.

The Rebuilding of Ground Zero, Part 103

Is NYU going to come to the rescue to help get the site of the former Deutsche Bank building developed? It seems that the university may do just that. The NYU master plan is looking to develop a skyscraper for housing, and the former Deutsche Bank building site would fit their needs perfectly. It would be far less controversial than the university's planned expansion in Greenwich Village around its existing campus and is far more likely to bring life and vitality to the Financial District and Lower Manhattan as a 24-7 destination than other options.

The demolition of the Deutsche Bank building is scheduled to be completed by the end of the year (better late than never).

Meanwhile, after a FoxNews story claimed that one of the developers seeking to operate 1WTC (Freedom Tower, the Related Companies, has ties to various Middle East groups, Steve Cuozzo (of the Post) writes about his conversation with Related Cos. boss Stephen Ross:

"I'm furious. They're trying to get the victims' families rather than the Port Authority to make the decision," fumed normally even-tempered Ross, who wouldn't say whom he meant by "they're."

"The partners they're talking about don't have an equity interest in our company," Ross said. "We have only two equity partners -- Goldman Sachs and Michael Dell's MSD Capital."

Related's Mideast partners, he said, "are just debtholders. They have a subordinated debt position with no rights.

"They have no seats on our board. There are no covenants that give them a say in anything."

The uproar erupted when Fox News Channel's Peter Johnson Jr. said on-air yesterday morning that Related is "substantially bankrolled by the most powerful Arab corporate interests in the world," and questioned whether it would be an appropriate partner at the site where nearly 3,000 were killed by terrorists on 9/11.

"For anyone who suffered loss, the news may be dizzying," Johnson said.

In fact, Related announced its debt agreements with Mideast funds Mubadala Development, Olayan Group and Kuwait Investment Authority in 2007, when the story was widely reported.

But Ross yesterday seethed over what he clearly regarded as an attempt to manipulate the PA into rejecting Related's bid at Ground Zero.

The PA wouldn't have been in this position at all if they simply got out of the way and let Larry Silverstein build the towers years ago, but chose instead to drag their feet, watched as the credit and real estate markets collapsed, and resulted in it becoming even more difficult in getting the site built out as per the master plan.

But since we're in this position, Related is definitely right to get pissed about this attempt to sway public opinion against the company in the right to operate 1WTC on little more than innuendo and a lack of facts.

The Rebuilding of Ground Zero, Part 100

Once again, delays in demolishing the former Deutsche Bank building are causing a ripple of delays throughout the work at the rest of the site. It means that construction of the vehicle security center is now set back yet another year.

Oh, and it will add another $100 million to the cost as a result of delays.

Meanwhile, a NY Times editorial is guardedly optimistic over last week's deal between the Port Authority and Larry Silverstein, even though the facts would suggest that this is simply a restatement of the existing mess and that all of the towers proposed in the master plan will not get built.

There isn't any reason to throw confetti; most of the office space destroyed in the 9/11 attacks isn't being rebuilt anytime soon, and that means that Lower Manhattan will see companies seek to do business elsewhere rather than work in and around an ongoing construction site for years without end.

The Rebuilding of Ground Zero, Part 95

Scott Pelley of CBS News takes an in depth look at the situation at Ground Zero and calls it an outrage that the situation isn't as far along as it should have been. It's a situation that I've been detailing for years. Welcome to the party pal. Where have you been? CBS News has offices uptown, but they most certainly know that Lower Manhattan is still missing the towers at Ground Zero as promised. This isn't a surprise.

What is a surprise is that it took CBS News years before they sent 60 Minutes to Ground Zero to take a look at the sorry state of affairs that I've been cataloging since before I started blogging it on A Blog For All. It's a disgrace that the Port Authority is passing the buck and blaming Larry Silverstein for delays when the Port Authority is years behind on its own schedule for rebuilding the transit hub and repeatedly delayed handing over the site in a condition suitable for rebuilding.

Silverstein had sued the Port Authority for $2.75 billion over the delays and while the court found that the Port Authority had indeed repeatedly delayed handing over the site in accordance with prior agreements, Silverstein was not entitled to damages.

Moreover, the LMDC, a public entity, has still been incapable of demolishing the former Deutsche Bank building that was severely damaged on 9/11 and it was only a few short months ago that Fiterman Hall was finally demolished after it stood hulking over the triangle in front of the newly rebuilt 7WTC, which Silverstein had rebuilt within three years time.

Each delay builds on the next, which is why fanciful schedules and timelines claiming that various components of the rebuilding will be completed come with expiration dates and probability charts. More often than not, the Port Authority will not make its deadlines, pushing the rebuilding even further into the future.

The lack of urgency in rebuilding is still omnipresent. The failure to obtain sufficient funding for this shovel ready project is also astounding. At a time when the federal government is throwing hundreds of billions of dollars around to stimulate the economy, where's the money to help rebuild Ground Zero? 4 WTC was pretty much canceled last week because of a lack of financing, which is simply unconscionable. That means that should the building be reconsidered at some point in the future, it will mean a far higher cost and inconvenience to those who commute through the site to say nothing of those who live and work in the area who have to deal with the ongoing construction that will likely continue for the foreseeable future.

The Rebuilding of Ground Zero, Part 94

Say goodbye to Tower 2 at the World Trade Center, because Larry Silverstein and the Port Authority can't seem to find the money to make it happen.

An iconic 79-story skyscraper long planned for Ground Zero that would have been taller than the Empire State Building appears to be dead.

Developer Larry Silverstein has proposed a new financing scheme for the troubled site that discards the 1,270-foot Tower 2, sources familiar with the project say. In the past two weeks, he has come under intense pressure from Gov. Paterson to resolve his bitter war with the Port Authority.

Acting after Silverstein was slapped down last month in his bid to snag $3.5 billion in penalties from the PA because of building delays, Paterson urged him to throw more cash into the project and scale back his demands.

Tower 2 would have been designed by Sir Norman Foster and reached more than 1,250 feet into the air. It was also the one tower design that most people seemed to like (and even more curiously, was the one tower that most closely resembled the original Daniel Libeskind master plan sketches and plans for towers with sloping roof lines). The site has been plagued with Port Authority delays in getting the site prepped for construction, so this is the latest problem for that tower. Meanwhile, Tower 4, where the Port Authority intends to house its offices is underway just to the south.

All the while, the hulking ruin of the former Deutsche Bank building hovers over the entire site, as its deconstruction timetable affects construction through the site since the Deutsche bank building location is critical for future operations in the site.

The Rebuilding of Ground Zero, Part 92

A recent decision by an arbitrator to refuse to give Larry Silverstein billions of dollars in compensation because of missed opportunities to secure financing was just one part of a larger problem. Construction is progressing at Ground Zero, but the continuing mess that is the former Deutsche Bank building demolition looms ever larger.

The building has to be demolished before construction can proceed on the Ground Zero Vehicle Security Center. Without that center, businesses wont be able to conduct business through the rest of the site even if the office towers are built.

But the VSC situation might be the most meaningful, and ominous, of all.

The VSC, one of several projects for which the PA is responsible, won't be finished until late 2013, according to a confidential PA report cited by the arbitrators.

The further delay in that already twice-delayed job gives Silverstein reason -- or an excuse, depending on your point of view -- for not wanting to build his towers any time soon.

Without the VSC, trucks won't be able to get to them, thus making lease-up and servicing impossible.

After all, why put up towers costing $1 billion each with no certainty they could actually be used?

According to the 2006 master development agreement between Silverstein and the PA, the VSC was supposed to be done by February 2011. Then, PA Executive Director Chris Ward's "Roadmap" of October 2008 moved the "target" to finish the VSC back to early 2012.

But that report also said the VSC's "probabilistic" -- i.e., more likely -- completion was the third quarter of that year.

Now, the arbitrators have bared a confidential PA analysis stating that the VSC won't be finished until September 2013. (The PA apparently regarded all previous targets as "aspirational," a level of fantasy even beyond "probabilistic.")

No one is going to want to take leases on office space if they can't actually stock the offices or maintain their daily operations if they can't get the daily supplies through a non-existent VSC. Those delays continue mounting and the interminable delay in demolition is taking its toll on Silverstein to secure leases for the office towers he's supposed to build.

It now appears that taking down a single floor every few weeks is overly optimistic - and there are 20+ floors remaining on the site.

It's little wonder that the construction schedules are all out of kilter for the 3 and 4 WTC sites; there's little impetus to move ahead when the LMDC and Port Authority can't guarantee a start date on the VSC (let alone a completion date).

Meanwhile, New York City is again sifting through debris from Ground Zero to look for remains of those murdered in the 9/11 attacks.

Anthropologists and other forensic experts will hand-sift 844 cubic yards of soil and other material - about the amount that fits in a dump truck - that was gathered since December 2007 from various sites around Ground Zero. A prior sifting operation resulted in identifying 27 additional victims.

To date, 1,629 victims of the World Trade Center attacks have been identified, out of 2,752 killed.

The Rebuilding of Ground Zero, Part 90

It's the year end edition of the rebuilding of Ground Zero series, and it ends more or less as it began the year. The former Deutsche Bank building remains a hulking ruin looming large over the rest of the Ground Zero site. In more than a month since demolition resumed, only two floors have been removed. There is no timetable for when the building will finally be gone, despite the fact that the site is critical to the rebuilding of the rest of the Ground Zero site.

Construction of 2WTC and 3WTC remains shrouded in mystery because of the ongoing flap between Larry Silverstein and the Port Authority.

Yet, there is some good news to be had. Fiterman Hall is gone and a new tower will rise in its stead adjacent to Silverstein's 7WTC. The Goldman Sachs building across from Ground Zero was finished this year, and the Freedom Tower is finally rising above street level as two tower cranes and 2 heavy lift cranes have been raising steel more than 150 feet into the air (which is still less than 10% of the Freedom Tower's final height of 1,776 feet). Construction at 4WTC is also underway, with two tower cranes now operating on that site as well.

Work on the memorial and transit hub both continue apace, and the Port Authority's website provides semi-regular updates, including video and photos of construction progress.

UPDATE:
Curbed has more photos of Ground Zero, including an insider look at the 1WTC/Freedom Tower construction. The 9/11 Memorials are taking shape, including the walls that will eventually comprise the waterfalls at the heart of each of the tower "footprints".

The Rebuilding of Ground Zero, Part 87

As I walked out of PATH this morning, I turned and saw a most unusual sight. It was the facade of the former Deutsche Bank building starting to come down after nearly three years of delays. Demolition on the building had stopped following a fire that killed two firefighters because someone involved in the demolition cut standpipes and other safety precautions were not taken.

It is long past due, but the demolition can't come fast enough as the site is necessary as a staging point for construction around the rest of Ground Zero.

The Rebuilding of Ground Zero, Part 82

The former Deutsche Bank building is expected to be gone by December 2010, which is years after the building was originally slated for demolition due to a deadly fire, serious problems with the contractors involved in the work, and new more onerous rules designed to prevent future accidents at the site.

LMDC President David Emil said he expects the demolition to begin on Nov. 2. Until a few floors come down, he said, it's too soon to be able to predict how quickly the work can be done and when it would be finished.

The tower suffered a 15-story gash on 9/11, and was filled with toxins from the collapsed World Trade Center.

Work to demolish the Deutsche building began in March 2007. It was expected to be done by the end of 2008.

But the project has had a history of setbacks, including an August 2007 blaze in which two city firefighters died, unable to get water from standpipes that had been cut. The fire and ensuing investigation stopped work for 10 months.

Costs have risen dramatically, too. In 2004, the price tag for demolition and cleaning the tower of toxins was put at $82 million. The cost now is estimated at well over $200 million, not including the $90 million the LMDC spent to buy the site.

Corruption charges have also hit former contractors. Yesterday, Robert Chiarappa, 45, was sentenced to 2½ years in prison for billing the government for $1.2 million in supplies that were never delivered.

Meanwhile, Fiterman Hall across Ground Zero from the Deutsche Bank building is nearly gone. About three stories remain of that building, and a new IM Pei designed building for the Borough of Manhattan Community College will soon rise on the site.

At the same time, the massive steel beams making up the exterior base of the Freedom Tower continue to be installed, and the north core tower crane was jacked to accommodate the rising tower. There are now four massive cranes (two tower cranes and two movable cranes) operating on the Freedom Tower site.

Meanwhile, some folks haven't been paying attention to the real work done at the site. This guy at Business Week thinks there hasn't been any work on the site.

Also, there has been some uproar over the fact that a contract to manufacture blast-resistant glass for the Freedom Tower went to a Chinese company.

"This new tower is going to be made out of subsidized Chinese glass, putting factory workers out of their jobs in America," said Scott Paul, director of the Alliance for American Manufacturing, a partnership of the United Steelworkers and some manufacturers.

On Thursday, the Alliance sent a letter to U.S. trade officials asking that they address what they see as unfair trade practices. Specifically, the group says that the Chinese government spends billions of dollars subsidizing the glass industry's energy costs.

"Our domestic glass industry is the most efficient in the world, but it cannot compete against production that is heavily subsidized by the Chinese government," according to the letter. "As a result, glass production in the U.S. has suffered in recent years, with plant closings and thousands of lost jobs throughout the country."

U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk and Commerce Secretary Gary Locke are slated for trade meetings in Hangzhou, China, later this month.

A Chinese spokesman on trade issues did not respond to requests for comment.

The U.S. glass industry has lost more than 40,000 jobs since 2000, according to Department of Labor figures, even as the Chinese glass industry has experienced explosive growth. Between 2000 and 2008, U.S. imports of Chinese glass have tripled.

The Rebuilding of Ground Zero, Part 81

It's about damned time. The former Deutsche Bank building demolition will finally resume its work after a two-year delay resulting from a deadly fire that killed two FDNY firefighters because standpipes were cut and other safety issues that were discovered in the aftermath.

Now, three and a half years after demolition of the 41-story tower began, workers next week will start the arduous job of dismantling its 26 remaining stories and removing 15,750 tons of concrete and 11,000 tons of steel.

Crews have already replaced the black plastic netting shrouding the building with blue, fire-retardant netting; removed all the walls, glass, plumbing and work sheds from the interior; and erected a plywood perimeter around the top three floors. The construction manager, Bovis Lend Lease, expects to get a permit from the city’s Buildings Department early next week to resume demolition.

In the coming months, ironworkers, operating engineers and laborers will go floor by floor, smashing the concrete into rubble, cutting the steel beams and lowering the debris to the ground under the watch of a small army of fire guards, inspectors and regulators. Sometime next spring, the star-crossed building will cease to exist.

“We believe we have developed a plan utilizing the latest techniques and best practices to safely and efficiently deconstruct 130 Liberty Street,” Steven H. Sommer, a senior vice president of Bovis Lend Lease, said in an interview on Tuesday.

Demolition work is also progressing on the nearby Fiterman Hall that was plagued by political indecision and an inability of the City and State to get the demolition work underway. Fiterman Hall will eventually be rebuilt for the Borough of Manhattan Community College, but plans for a new structure on the site of the former Deutsche Bank building are up in the air. It will be the site of a vehicle security center for vehicles entering Ground Zero, but beyond that, it isn't clear what will happen.

What we do know is that the delays in demolition have delayed reconstruction efforts throughout Ground Zero since that building was to provide access to the rest of the site.

UPDATE:
The WTC Memorial Plaza continues to be built out; construction of the SW portion of the site is now underway. There are 694 pieces of steel involved in this section, and after this work is done, only a small section adjacent to the PATH station will need to be erected. The SW corner has been exceedingly difficult to build because of foundation work and the close proximity to the PATH tracks. When the work is done, the PATH tracks will be nearly completely enclosed but for that one area adjacent to the station.

The Rebuilding of Ground Zero, Part 80

Fiterman Hall is finally coming down, and is now several stories lower than it had been just weeks ago. That stands in stark contrast to the often delayed demolition of the former Deutsche Bank building. Deconstruction was supposed to resume over the summer, but further delays have meant that the hulking ruin continues towering over the Southern side of Ground Zero and delays the rebuilding efforts throughout the site.

Meanwhile, Governor Paterson signed into law a provision allowing Ground Zero workers to sue over medical claims.

The law immediately allows more than 3,000 Ground Zero workers to revive lawsuits that were thrown out by a federal judge in July on the technical ground that they were not filed within 90 days of the workers' conditions being diagnosed.

-- PHOTOS: Ground Zero immediately after 9/11

-- PHOTOS: Ground Zero today

It will also allow new lawsuits from an untold number of workers who never even filed claims.

One of them is Chris Klein, 38, a carpenter from Broad Channel, Queens, who worked for three months at Ground Zero in 2002 and is now on disability with a lung condition. Attorneys told him he waited too long after his diagnosis in 2004 and couldn't file a lawsuit.

"I put my life on the line to help the city and the state, and we were lied to that the air was good to breathe," said Klein, who said he also has been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and chronic sinusitis.

Klein said he will now join a separate group of about 10,000 police, firefighters, construction workers and others who worked at or near Ground Zero in the months after 9/11 and who filed lawsuits seeking compensation for subsequent illnesses. They contend the government had told them, falsely, the air conditions were safe.

UPDATE:
A convoy of trucks from Maryland is heading to New York's JFK Airport with a batch of steel recovered from Ground Zero following the 9/11 attacks. The steel was tested and examined by NIST, and is on its way back to a hanger at the airport pending its use in the 9/11 memorial at Ground Zero or for use at a memorial or monument elsewhere in the country.