Cordoba House Controversy Update

The New York Daily News is running with a story about how construction workers in the City wont work on the project.

A growing number of New York construction workers are vowing not to work on the mosque planned near Ground Zero.

"It's a very touchy thing because they want to do this on sacred ground," said Dave Kaiser, 38, a blaster who is working to rebuild the World Trade Center site.

"I wouldn't work there, especially after I found out about what the imam said about U.S. policy being responsible for 9/11," Kaiser said.

The grass-roots movement is gaining momentum on the Internet. One construction worker created the "Hard Hat Pledge" on his blog and asked others to vow not to work on the project if it stays on Park Place.

"Thousands of people are signing up from all over the country," said creator Andy Sullivan, a construction worker from Brooklyn. "People who sell glass, steel, lumber, insurance. They are all refusing to do work if they build there."

Don't expect that to stop construction, if this project secures its financing though.

Just expect to see the big rat for nonunion work, as seen at other nonunion jobs elsewhere in the City. It would just add to the opposition to the construction near Ground Zero.

If anyone thought that the proposed community center was uniformly backed by the Muslim community, you'd be wrong. Similarly, if you thought that 9/11 victims families were of one mind on the project, you too would be wrong.



Former Mayor Rudy Giuliani has come out in support of Gov. Paterson's proposal to relocate the site, all while asking tough questions of the proposal's backers. He's got a point about the sensitivity issue - if Imam Rauf and the Cordoba Initiative were truly interested in building bridges between the Muslim community and those who lost loved ones in 9/11, they'd be much more open about their plans and avoid saying insensitive statements, or potentially inflammatory ones (like claiming that they would obtain financing from Saudi Arabia and Iran) or that the community center is nowhere near Ground Zero (which strains credulity) or that some buildings in the City have their own ZIP codes (the former WTC did - 10048).

That's even as the US State Department going back to the Bush Administration used Rauf as a pointman on building ties between the Muslim community and Americans. Indeed, Rauf was in Bahrain where he said that he wanted to Americanize Islam.

“This issue of extremism is something that has been a national security issue — not only for the United States but also for many countries and nations in the Muslim world,” Rauf told Associated Press Television News.

“This is why this particular trip has a great importance because all countries in the Muslim world — as well as the Western world — are facing this ... major security challenge.”

Rauf also said he has been working on a way to “Americanize Islam,” although he did not elaborate on what an American version of Islam might look like.

“The same principles and rituals were everywhere, but what happened in different regions was there were different interpretations,” he said. “So we recognize that our heritage allows for re-expressing the internal principles of our religion in different cultural times and places.”

The comments differ greatly from what Rauf said in December 2001. Just two months after the 9/11 attacks, the imam wasn't so quick to condemn radical religious beliefs in his own faith.

"The United States' policies were an accessory to the crime that happened, because we have been an accessory to a lot of innocent lives dying in the world," he said during an interview on CBS's "60 Minutes. "In fact, in the most direct sense, Osama bin Laden is made in the USA."

That's the kind of statement that would get him in trouble with the fundamentalists like al Qaeda (Salafists, Wahabis, and even among the mad mullahs of Iran).

UPDATE:
Does John Podhoretz live in New York City? Has he even visited Lower Manhattan in the last few months? Because his latest op-ed is riddled with bogus information. While it is true that the Ground Zero master plan was botched by then Gov. George Pataki and his chosen designer Daniel Libeskind, the Port Authority has moved on with the assistance of SOM, Foster and Partners, Santiago Calatrava, and several other major firms to design skyscrapers and integral features for Ground Zero including the museum/memorial (memorial designed by Michael Arad).

The actual memorials are well underway and will be completed by next year. The fact is that you can't view them from street level because the structure of those memorials are at bedrock - 70 feet below street level. It looks like there's no work done on them because the work is obscured by the security cordons around the site, and the rising Freedom Tower (now at more than 34 stories).

You can see the progress from the World Financial Center and any of the towers surrounding the site. Heck, if John simply read this site on a regular basis (or even the NY Post columns by Steve Cuozzo or Tom Toupousis) he'd know that work is progressing all over the site - with much of it still obscured because it is at or below street level.

The work (or lack thereof) at Ground Zero from late 2001 through the present did not create the conditions in which SoHo Properties could purchase and develop the property. The owners of that building wanted to sell, and found themselves a willing buyer in the SoHo Properties.

The Port Authority didn't control that site. Neither did the City. The LMDC didn't purchase the building and didn't consider it worthy of being purchased. That latter point may well have been an oversight - but given that the LMDC couldn't demolish the former Deutsche Bank building without major catastrophes - fires, deaths, negligence and rampant safety problems - there's no way to say that the building would have been in any better hands.

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 93

Yet another study of ongoing construction deadlines finds that delays are likely to push completion of key infrastructure and projects around Ground Zero into 2015 and beyond.

The review by the feds, obtained by The Post through a Freedom of Information request, gives the PA just a 25 percent chance of getting the massive project done by the authority's latest target date of mid-2014 -- a deadline three years later than originally planned.

The FTA's analysis also warns that even the feds' mid-2015 projected completion date could also falter because of unresolved delays in building two of Ground Zero developer Larry Silverstein's soaring office towers planned for either side of the transit hub.

"Construction of Towers 2 and 3 could become the most significant source of risks associated with the [transit] project," the report found.

Silverstein and the Port Authority are now in talks over how to move forward with construction of his WTC towers. They have about a month to reach an agreement.

Meanwhile, the Ground Zero Performing Arts Center has received a go ahead for construction to start next quarter. The LMDC is putting $50 million up for the center (but expect those costs to soar).

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 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).

The Rebuilding of Ground Zero, Part 64

You've got to be kidding me that the LMDC and other relevant entities are unable to get the former Deutsche Bank building demolished. Another fire at the site, which pretty much went unreported by the media, stopped work for most of April.

The Lower Manhattan Development Corp. says the small fire in a power distribution box stopped work for most of April at the former Deutsche Bank tower. Contractors now say it will be January 2010 when the tower is completely dismantled, about three months behind its latest schedule.

The building demolition deadline has once again been pushed back to January 2010.

It was supposed to be demolished by mid 2008, but the discovery of additional remains from the 9/11 attacks, a deadly fire that killed two firefighters and other assorted accidents, has repeatedly delayed the project.

Those delays compound construction delays at the rest of Ground Zero, particularly the construction of the underground transit security facility, the entrance to which is located where the former Deutsche Bank building stands.

Now, deconstruction isn't expected to restart until July. Decontamination work must proceed and be completed before deconstruction can proceed. It's expected that once decontamination work is completed, it should take six months to deconstruct the building. We'll see about that, because everything about this part of the project has been plagued with delays.

Lest we forget, the situation at Fiterman Hall isn't much better. While there haven't been any fatalities or accidents, it still remains a hulking ruin on the North side of Ground Zero, flanked by the gleaming new 7WTC and a stark reminder that the City and State, LMDC, CUNY, Port Authority, and the Dormitory Authority have failed miserably to move these projects along.

UPDATE:
Now Mayor Bloomberg calls for a summit to deal with the Ground Zero mess? We're nearly eight years into the rebuilding efforts, and Bloomberg finally pitches this idea? Where was he three years ago? Five years ago?

The fact is that Bloomberg actually has little sway over rebuilding efforts at Ground Zero since it's between the Port Authority and Silverstein Properties to get a deal done. They've been bickering since day one, and the Port Authority remains behind schedule on getting the site prepared for Silverstein to build.

Meanwhile, Bloomberg's prior ideas for the site included dropping the office space and pushing residential real estate instead (let's ignore that any new office space at Ground Zero would compete with his company's Midtown office space for tenants and which would have favorable leasing rates).

The Rebuilding of Ground Zero, Part 37

The mess at Ground Zero takes center stage at the New York Post today, with wall to wall coverage of the disastrous management by the Port Authority. Steve Cuozzo notes that the Port Authority is busy trying to unload the Freedom Tower construction on some other company, potentially Related Cos. or Brookfield, but the report released yesterday by the Port Authority omits any mention of the Freedom Tower and that mess.

Cuozzo savages the Port Authority for its ongoing decision to try and get Calatrava's PATH station built according to Calatrava's wishes, which is pushing the memorial and other projects behind schedule and affecting everything due to the extraordinary costs.

The Post highlights the six people most responsible for the mess: Larry Silverstein, George Pataki, Anthony Shorris, Avi Schick, Charles Gargano, and Eliot Spitzer. I'd argue that Silverstein is least responsible among that bunch for the mess, since he's been at the mercy of the Port Authority's Shorris and the EDC and LMDC, run by Pataki's people Gargano and Schick. Spitzer did nothing to improve matters, and it looks like Governor Paterson is taking the first steps to impose order on the site. Charles Ward's report shows just how bad things are when he can't even come up with all of the parameters for just how off the rails the rebuilding has gone.

Here's just a sampling of the problems:

Ward said he had found the following issues that are critical to the overall project were still unresolved:

- Final design of the transportation hub and vehicle security center.

- Demolition of the former Deutsche Bank building.

- Accurate projection of rising construction costs, primarily caused by the country's oil crisis.

- Coordination of more than 100 contractors and subcontractors and 19 government agencies.

- Design and schedule for rebuilding the Cortlandt St. subway station.

Ward offered no new timetables or cost estimates in his review, which was prepared at Gov. Paterson's request.

He said he hoped to do so by September if these critical issues are addressed.

Of course, anyone who has read through my coverage of the rebuilding at Ground Zero would know that it's been an absolute battle. Cuozzo and Tom Toupisis at the Post have been reporting on this for years as well. It's not like it was a secret that the rebuilding was a mess and that the Port Authority and Lower Manhattan Development Corporation have botched the rebuilding.

The Deutsche Bank building debacle is a significant reason for ongoing delays since it is where the transportation hub and security screening facility is to be located, and it has yet to be demolished due to ongoing contamination concerns and the fact that remains were discovered at the building in 2006, forcing a renewed search throughout the area.

And for those who think that Donald Trump will come in and save things, you'd be sadly mistaken. There is not going to be some massive redesign of the site followed by the construction of the Twin Towers. That's simply not going to happen as the site is being prepared for the construction of the currently planned towers. Imposing a completely new design for rebuilding at Ground Zero would push back all the timetables even further, and delay rebuilding for years.

It's also funny listening to some of the political "leaders" complaining about the glacial pace of reconstruction and the candor of the Ward report. Where were these people when the rebuilding was lagging years ago and could prod the political leaders most responsible into action? That includes people like Jerrold Nadler, Charles Schumer, Sheldon Silver, and Scott Stringer. They were missing in action, and only now do we hear from them? Sad.

UPDATE:
The Calatrava designed transit hub has gone through yet another revision. No longer will the soaring winged roof open. An opening will remain, but it's far smaller than previous versions. Of course, those aspects of the design were what got people interested in the hub in the first place. Pretty soon, it will look no different than the completely utilitarian and bland temporary structure we have at present.

The Rebuilding of Ground Zero, Part 17

While the LMDC is positioning a safety officer at the Deutsche Bank building to prevent a repeat of a deadly fire that killed two firefighters and several other accidents that left several hurt, the families of the two firefighters, Richard Beddia and Joseph Graffagnino have filed suit against the LMDC, Bovis Lend Lease, and several other parties:

The lawsuit accuses the main subcontractor, The John Galt Corporation, of allowing its workers to smoke, and other contractors, including Bovis Lend Lease and URS Inc., of failing to remove fire hazards and give firefighters floor plans or other information to help them safely fight the blaze.

The lawsuit also named the Lower Manhattan Construction Command Center, a state-city agency that oversaw demolition of the building, which had been damaged on Sept. 11, 2001, when the World Trade Center collapsed into it.

A spokesman for the agencies declined comment Wednesday.

Bovis, the main contractor still on the job, doesn't comment on pending litigation, spokeswoman Mary Costello said. A spokeswoman for Galt, which was fired from the job a week after the fire, declined comment. An e-mail to URS wasn't immediately returned.

Delays in the deconstruction of the Deutsche Bank building will mean delays elsewhere at Ground Zero since the site is crucial to accessing the rest of the site as the construction of 2, 3, and 4 WTC get underway.

The Rebuilding of Ground Zero, Part 11

Deconstruction at the Deutsche Bank building may finally restart, but the work is well behind schedule as a result of the deadly fire this past August that killed two firefighters and ongoing problems in selecting a new contractor to handle the cleanup and demolition. The new cleanup plan suggests that instead of taking the building down as each lower floor gets cleared, the cleanup will first eliminate contaminants throughout the entire remaining structure and that would be followed by the deconstruction.

The two firefighters were killed because the standpipe in the basement was disconnected and no one had bothered to check to see that there was working fire suppressions systems in the building. The fire was exascerbated by the air control systems in place to decontaminate the building and could have played a role in disorienting the firefighters in a maze of highly flammable materials.

Work is also falling behind with the Port Authority construction of the bathtub that is a necessary precondition for Larry Silverstein to build 3 and 4 WTC.

Merill Lynch looks like it's about to resign to stay in a large chunk of the World Financial Center.

This looks like good news. The head of the insurance fund that was set up to help provide those affected by Ground Zero related ailments has stepped down.

Christine LaSala, president and CEO of the $1 billion World Trade Center Captive Insurance Co., submitted her resignation effective July 1 - or as soon as a replacement is found.

Sources told The Post yesterday that LaSala, 57 - who has also been condemned for spending exorbitant sums on lawyers and consultants - was pressured to leave by the Bloomberg administration, which governs the fund.

But the city Law Department issued a statement denying she was forced out, adding, "the city deeply regrets [her] departure."

She declined to comment beyond issuing a statement saying: "After nearly four years at the WTC Captive, I have concluded that this is an appropriate point to resume my retirement."

Her resignation comes a month after The Post reported that the fund for rescue and recovery workers spent more than $100 million, mainly on high-priced lawyers and consultants, as of Sept. 30. But it paid out just $320,000 to six workers with orthopedic injuries.

Maybe now those affected will get the financial assistance they're deserving instead of a bureaucractic and legal runaround.

The Battle For Ground Zero, Part 228

The battle over the insurance proceeds on the World Trade Center complex has finally come to an end. Confidentiality agreements will shield what the various insurance companies will have to shell out individually, but the culmulative total of the deal is $2 billion that will be split between the Port Authority and Larry Silverstein. This money will help secure financing on the construction of the Freedom Tower and the remaining office towers to be erected at the site.

The settlement with seven of the two dozen insurers — Allianz Global Risk, Travelers Companies, Zurich American, Swiss Re, Employers Insurance, Industrial Risk Insurers and Royal Indemnity — that provided coverage for the World Trade Center is the culmination of a two-month campaign by the state insurance superintendent, Eric R. Dinallo, involving meetings in Geneva, Paris and Delaware.

In recent weeks, Gov. Eliot Spitzer joined the negotiations, which lasted until the early morning hours today. The other insurers made good on their claims.

The agreement removes a dark cloud over the rebuilding effort, although the insurance money represents only about half of the $9 billion cost of rebuilding the office towers and retail space at ground zero.

Without the money, officials say they might not have been able to obtain private financing or the use of tax-free Liberty Bonds. The dispute, officials say, could have dragged on for some time without a resolution, while eating up millions of dollars in lawyers’ fees.

“The unsettled insurance claims were the last major barrier to rebuilding and have been bitterly and intensely contested for almost six years,” Governor Spitzer said in an interview. “This means we can now fund construction, access the financial markets and move on to what should be our primary focus: rebuilding.”

He said the agreement, which ends all the litigation, was part of a collaborative effort on the part of many officials who had lost “patience with the ongoing fighting that didn’t serve the public interest or the effort to rebuild.” Mr. Dinallo was working in tandem with the retired judge Albert Rosenblatt, who was overseeing an arbitration proceeding in the case.

Business leaders downtown, who have been frustrated by years of delays and political and legal wrangling, were elated by the news.

As for the actual construction at the site, Virocon will be providing glass for the Freedom Tower. One million square feet of glass will be needed to sheath the tower's exterior.

Meanwhile, the LMDC, which was supposed to fade into oblivion (and Gov. Spitzer called on its shuttering), will now carry on a mission of oversight:

The Lower Manhattan Development Corp., which once was the most important agency involved in the rebuilding of ground zero and ran competitions for a master plan and a memorial to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, appeared last year to be shutting down.

But it has hundreds of millions of dollars to monitor, several million to spend and new leaders appointed by Gov. Eliot Spitzer to keep watch over the rebuilding.

“I think it’s obvious that the governor is going to utilize this agency that is responsible for ensuring that the revitalized lower Manhattan that has been promised will in fact be delivered,” said Avi Schick, chairman of the LMDC’s board.

Spitzer last month appointed Schick, who is also president and chief operating officer of the Empire State Development Corp., and new president David Emil, the former owner of the Windows on the World restaurant at the trade center, to take over the agency he once suggested should not continue.

“The site is obviously meaningful to me, emotionally and personally,” said Emil, who lost 73 employees in the 2001 attacks.

The LMDC still has the task of completing years-old design guidelines for buildings and facilities at the site, despite the fact that construction has begun on the Freedom Tower skyscraper, the memorial and a transit hub. Emil said the LMDC should know by September how to allocate $45 million set aside for downtown community groups.

UPDATE:
Plus one. The NYC Medical Examiners has determined that Felicia Dunn-Jones died of respiratory ailments six months after 9/11 died as a result of her inhalation of dust from the collapsing towers. Her death was ruled a homicide.

Her name will join 2,749 others who were murdered by the al Qaeda terrorists on 9/11/2001. Her name will be added to the 9/11 WTC Memorial.

The Battle for Ground Zero, Part 221

The LMDC is shutting down its webcam for Ground Zero. The LMDC had operated the webcam for the last year to show the progress (and lack thereof) ongoing at the site. The site is being shut down because of a lack of traffic to the site to justify the costs for operating the webcam.

There is another webcam operated by Project Rebirth that is documenting progress at the site.

Meanwhile, this story shouldn't surprise anyone. A couple of real estate moguls who oppose the construction of the Freedom Tower have a financial stake in making sure that the tower isn't built.

Last week, developers Douglas Durst and Anthony Malkin put their names at the bottom of full-page advertisements in several New York City newspapers by a group they are co-chairmen of called The Continuing Committee for a Reasonable World Trade Center. The advertisements said the project was ill conceived, too expensive, and poorly planned.

The ads were released just after the Spitzer administration indicated it would move forward with the project, and before the Port Authority approved several key construction contacts. They went into detail about the tower's architecture, its security vulnerabilities, its rent roll, its height, its name — just about everything except for the fact that the project includes plans for television and radio broadcast antennae that would replace those on the old twin towers, and compete with those on buildings owned by Messrs. Malkin and Durst.

Mr. Malkin controls the Empire State Building and Mr. Durst owns the Condé Nast Building at 4 Times Square, both of which are now the most desirable locations in the city for the location of television and radio broadcast facilities and their antennae.

The leasing of antennae space amounts to millions of dollars a year, and while it would represent only a fraction of the entire revenue stream, people have opposed construction with less vested interest in ensuring the status quo (no tower) persists. These two real estate ventures would stand to lose millions of dollars when the Freedom Tower is built, and to ignore that potential conflict of interest is most curious.

The Battle for Ground Zero, Part 217

The New York Times takes yet another swipe at the Freedom Tower design. The author, Nicholas Ouroussoff, laments the design process, but overlooks two decisions that were made at the outset that pushed us in this direction. The first decision was the requirement to return the street grid to the superblock that contained the WTC complex. That pushed buildings to certain locations. The second was to put a designer with absolutely no skyscraper experience in charge of designing the signature and first tower to be built - the Freedom Tower. Gov. Pataki is responsible for both decisions as he pushed for the Libeskind plan and had a commanding say on how the Port Authority and LMDC would operate.

Hurriedly redesigned more than a year ago after terrorism experts questioned its vulnerability to a bomb attack, the Freedom Tower, with its tapered bulk and chamfered corners, evokes a gargantuan glass obelisk. Its clumsy bloated form, remade by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, vaguely recalls the worst of postmodernist historicism. (It’s a marvel that its glass skin hasn’t been recast in granite.)

Recently cities like Paris, London and San Francisco have held major architectural competitions for towers that will reshape their skylines. All of them drew on an array of ambitious architectural talents; many of those designs pushed technological and structural limits while reimagining the skyscraper as part of a holistic urban vision.

Even in New York, which has lagged behind much of the world in its architectural ambitions over the last decade or so, projects like Norman Foster’s new Hearst Tower suggest that a higher standard is demanded in the design of our urban structures.

If built, the lamentable Freedom Tower would be a constant reminder of our loss of ambition, and our inability to produce an architecture that shows a genuine faith in America’s collective future rather than a nostalgia for a nonexistent past.

Nowhere is that failure of ambition more evident than in the tower’s base. In a society where the social contract that binds us together is fraying, the most incisive architects have found ways to create a more fluid relationship between private and public realms. The lobby of Thom Mayne’s Phare Tower in Paris, for example, is conceived as an extension of the public realm, drawing in the surrounding streetscape and tunneling deep into the ground to connect to a network of underground trains.

The Freedom Tower was forced into several redesigns because Libeskind's original designs were incapable of being translated into a workable structure.

However, Ouroussoff does have a point about the Freedom Tower base. The base was designed to be like a fortress - to protect the structure against car and truck bombs, but that too was a function of the placement of the Tower on a street grid. If cars aren't able to come within a set distance, the need to have an armored base is that much less. The decision to restore the street grid directly relates to the need to protect the new towers from car and truck bombs.

Meanwhile, as construction continues on the Freedom Tower and the transit hub, more structural steel from the original WTC was found over the weekend. Also, the Daily News admits that there were flaws in the reporting on Cesar Borja, who died shortly before the President's State of the Union Address where his son was in attendance to raise attention on those suffering from Ground Zero related ailments. The Post has an op-ed taking the Daily News and others to task for pushing an agenda on Ground Zero ailments that isn't supported by science at this point.

But suppose Borja had spent long hours in thick of the smoke. For months on end. From the very moment the towers crashed.

Would that prove that the dust caused his lung disease and promoted illness in others?

Absolutely not. That's just not the way science is - or should be - done.

In fact, despite illnesses among many who did work on The Pile, no one can say for sure whether anyone's long-term health was impaired - even remotely - by the clouds of 9/11 dust and debris.

For one thing, not enough time has elapsed for there to have been a "long term."

For another, no one has done a rigorous, controlled study of a statistically significant sample of 9/11 workers.

Such a study would involve, ideally, a comparison of the long-term health of these people to that of others with similar careers and backgrounds. Any large discrepancies would be considered highly suggestive.

Though such research may be done one day, it hasn't been done yet.

Now, that's the rub. There are firefighters who are suffering a variety of ailments that may or may not be related to service at Ground Zero, but there's no way to know for sure without conducting epidemiological studies. That takes time, and that's what some firefighters and other rescue workers are short on.

The Battle For Ground Zero, Part 210

The number of people who are signed up with one of the WTC health clinics continues to rise, not only as more people become aware of the program, but because more are coming down with what many call the WTC cough.

The Bellevue Hospital/NYU School of Medicine clinic has enrolled more than 300 additional patients since Mayor Bloomberg's announcement last fall of plans for a $16 million program expansion. It now serves more than 800 patients.

"We're finding people predominantly with upper- and lower-respiratory problems," said clinic director Dr. Joan Reibman. "We're getting more office workers and people who were caught up in the dust cloud."

Symptoms include asthma, sinusitis and shortness of breath, Reibman said. Bellevue had focused on treating downtown residents and office workers but now has the resources to see many more patients. Mount Sinai Hospital's 9/11 monitoring program has treated thousands of rescue and office workers.

The mayor and Health and Hospitals Corp. President Alan Aviles are expected to officially unveil the expanded Bellevue center this week. It will have more clinical space and beefed up staffing to eventually treat 6,000 patients exposed to Ground Zero contaminants.

Some local politicians think that a portion of the WTC memorial needs to be set aside for the Ground Zero workers who cleared the debris and died as a result of ailments links back to their service. I think this is a very good idea, though I'm sure it will not sit well with Bloomberg.

Two state lawmakers say they'll introduce legislation tomorrow requiring the Ground Zero museum to memorialize all workers who died from illnesses after toiling in the cleanup and recovery following 9/11.

"What we want to do is put to rest this question of whether . . . people . . . are dying because of their work here," co-sponsor Assemblyman Michael Gianaris (D-Queens) said yesterday at Ground Zero.

Joseph Zadroga, father of NYPD Detective James Zadroga, the first rescue worker to die of a confirmed 9/11-related illness, said the new law would fulfill a deathbed vow he made to his son.

"I promised him that his death would not be in vain," said Zadroga, who was with several ailing first responders and their relatives at Ground Zero yesterday. "The day they put that memorial up with his name on it . . . my job will be done."

World Trade Center Memorial Foundation Vice President Lynn Rasic said the museum would honor fallen first responders with or without the legislation.

The Daily News has more. Meanwhile, the city is going to be slapped with a $20 million lawsuit over the death of another Ground Zero worker. The wife of a utility repairman, Mark DeBiase, 41, who restored essential cellphone service at Ground Zero - and died last year of pulmonary fibrosis filed the suit against the city. Pulmonary fibrosis is the same disease that resulted in the deaths of Detective James Zadroga and Police Officer Cesar Borja, among others.

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

The Battle For Ground Zero, Part 207

What is going to happen to the WTC staircase. One of the last remnants of the original WTC, the staircase provided an escape for many leaving the complex before it collapsed.

The stairway, which led many down to safety on Vesey St., would be dismantled under a proposal being considered by the Lower Manhattan Development Corp.

The plan would incorporate some of the steps in the exterior stairs of the 78-story office tower that developer Larry Silverstein will build by 2012.

Alice Greenwald, director of the WTC Memorial Museum, also suggested that some of the original stairs could be incorporated into the design of the museum, due to open in 2010.

But neither suggestion was welcomed by preservationists who want to keep the staircase intact.

The Daily News also has a touching story about a police officer in need of a lung transplant after coming down with pulmonary fibrosis that may be related to his service at Ground Zero for weeks on end.

Meanwhile, JP Morgan Chase is looking to use the Deutshce Bank building site for an office tower of its own. That's not going to make Mayor Bloomberg happy since he was hoping to get the site (Tower 5) developed as a mixed use (residential/commercial) tower.

Tower 5 - a block south of Ground Zero at 130 Liberty St. and on the site of the heavily damaged and contaminated Deutsche Bank building - had been designated in April as a residential high-rise under a renegotiated plan for developing the World Trade Center's towers.

But several sources familiar with JPMorgan's talks with state and Port Authority officials said the firm's bid to develop the proposed 57-story tower for major corporate tenants is being taken seriously by the bistate agency.

In fact, sources said, JPMorgan is not the only corporate bidder for the site.

To make the commercial deal work, a source said, the Port Authority would have to agree to expand the size of Tower 5's base in order to accommodate the large, lower-level floors needed for trading rooms - a requirement for most financial-services firms.

Joseph Evangelisti, a spokesman for JPMorgan Chase, declined to comment on any talks with the Port Authority.

The financial-services firm's current headquarters are at 270 Park Ave. in the former Union Carbide Building. While the firm has no plans to relocate its headquarters, a series of acquisitions and a city work force of over 35,000 employees create a constant need for office space.

Last year, Bloomberg claimed there wasn't enough demand for office space to fill the five towers included in the World Trade Center's master plan and called for a major revision of the plan to include housing and hotels.

But the demand for Manhattan office space, including downtown, has boomed in the past year.

This development continues to show that Bloomberg and other naysayers were wrong about the strength of the real estate market and commercial real estate interest in Lower Manhattan. The strength is definitely there, and businesses are looking to downtown for modern amenities.

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

The Battle For Ground Zero, Part 206

More remains were found in debris removed from Ground Zero yesterday. The 39 fragments were discovered by forensic anthropologists examining the debris taken from excavations along the access road into the Ground Zero site at a Brooklyn facility. The Post identifies the remains as being discovered along Hull Road.

Also, here are some more details about the construction work underway at the site.

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

The Battle For Ground Zero, Part 205

Pouring of concrete for the new foundation "bathtub" is set to begin today at Ground Zero. The foundations will support the skyscrapers designed by Richard Rogers, Norman Foster, and Fumihiko Maki. Gothamist has more details on each of the skyscrapers and also notes that DNA testing on recently discovered remains have yet to yield results.

Details on the Norman Foster design (200 Greenwich St), with an angled diamond shaped skyline include the following:

The tower will consist of a central concrete core—steel encased in reinforced concrete—and an external structural steel frame. Safety systems will exceed New York City building code and Port Authority requirements. Designed to the highest energy efficiency ratings, 200 Greenwich Street will seek to achieve the gold standard under the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) by the US Green Building Council.

The Richard Rogers design (175 Greenwich St.) will also have a reinforced concrete core and meet the LEED standards. Other features include a design that :

... uses a structural load-sharing system of diamond-shaped bracing which helps to articulate the building's east-west configuration. All corners of the tower are column free to ensure that occupiers of the office levels have unimpeded 360 degree panoramic views of New York.

The upper levels of the tower appear to straddle the lower levels—the 'podium building'—that help to reduce the impact of the building's high volume and emphasize the interlocking nature of the base with the upper part of the building.

The Maki design also has the reinforced concrete core and LEED standards and incorporates the following design features:

The facades are clad in floor to ceiling windows that sandwich perforated meshed metal material at the spandrel areas and portions immediately below the ceiling to provide shading on the interior and a certain lightness and transparency on the exterior. The tower embraces an abstract quality - minimal, light, cool in color and ephemeral, changing with the light of day. Seen from a distance, the tower presents a unique angular profile at the crown acknowledging the spiral composition formed by the group of four towers, in keeping with the World Trade Center Master Plan.

The two obtuse edges of the tower on the southwest and northeast corners are articulated with dramatic indentations to appear slender and sharp. Inside, a single edge forms two offices with a window from the open office to allow for uninterrupted views at the corner tip of the floor.

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

The Battle For Ground Zero, Part 204

According to Steve Cuozzo, Gov. Spitzer doesn't have much time to get a handle on Ground Zero and ensure that the Freedom Tower rises above street level in short order. Steve Cuozzo gives him about one year before people take their ire out on the Governor. I'm not sure I totally agree with Cuozzo's timeframe, but I doubt that businesses will wait for the buildings to rise if they continue to see bureaucratic infighting and a replay of the same problems that delayed the Freedom Tower for more than two years resurface.

With Gov. Spitzer now running the show, some hope that things will progress more smoothly at Ground Zero. I'm not sure that will happen, not when Spitzer has already promised to review the Freedom Tower plans and other elements of the rebuilding. Of course, Spitzer also pledged no delays in the construction, so something will have to give.

All this comes at a time when the real estate market in Lower Manhattan shows significant strength as condo-conversions of office space have been put on hold or reversed because of the strength in the office market.

Meanwhile, the Fulton Street Terminal project is back on in its near full splendor after the MTA found additional money to make the central architectural features happen. The project will link up with the Ground Zero transit hub and link together the major subway lines running through Lower Manhattan and improve access to the various rail lines. There's also a neat interactive graphic showing what the terminal will look like when completed and the kind of changes that will be implemented.

Remains continue to be discovered at the site, as the search for remains progresses along the access road and in the vicinity of the Freedom Tower excavations.


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

The Battle for Ground Zero, Part 203

A Chinese company is bidding for significant space in the Freedom Tower. This is the same company that had a deal fall through for space in 7WTC.

A Chinese real-estate firm is negotiating with the Port Authority to lease one-third of the Freedom Tower, just six months after the company was rebuffed in a bid for space in the recently completed 7 World Trade Center, sources told The Post.

Beijing Vantone Real Estate would be the Freedom Tower's first private tenant, joining state and federal agencies that are in the midst of finalizing leases for a combined 1 million square feet of space in the tower.

Talks are taking place between Vantone and the Port Authority, which took over control of the Freedom Tower from Ground Zero developer Larry Silverstein earlier this year.

A Port Authority spokesman declined to comment.

Vantone had tried to lease the top five floors of 7 World Trade Center, but the tower's owner, Larry Silverstein, yanked the offer because of delays in financing.

If the latest deal with Vantone comes through, the Port Authority will have solid commitments to lease 1.8 million square feet of the 2.6 million-square-foot tower.

The fact that the building isn't even built and has a commitment for nearly 70% of the space shows that there is significant strength in the real estate market in Lower Manhattan and gives lie to the positions taken by Bloomberg and others who sought to minimize the rebuilding of office space lost in the 9/11 attacks. The Post doesn't have kind words for Gov. Pataki who's now considering a run for the Presidency but whose oversight of the Ground Zero rebuilding was horrendous as the site remains largely barren. It was only a last minute push that saw structural steel begin to rise at the Freedom Tower site more than two years after the cornerstone was first laid.

Meanwhile, more bone fragments were recovered from manholes in the vicinity of Ground Zero.

UPDATE 10/31/2006:
Still more remains were discovered yesterday in the area currently being excavated for the Freedom Tower.

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

The Battle For Ground Zero, Part 202

Work resumed at the Deutsche Bank building deconstruction site as the work stoppage was resolved last nite.

The first 30-ton structural steel beams brought to Ground Zero over the weekend is being hoisted into place today. You can bet that Pataki needed this to make good on his promise to get construction underway. If only he had a plan for Fiterman Hall, which is still shrouded in uncertainty. And did I mention that Spitzer may review the whole Freedom Tower project despite the steel coming into the site?

There's also a fear that the $40 million WTC fund for monitoring Ground Zero workers may be about to run out. A long term spending program was proposed by Sen. Hillary Clinton:

In October, the Bush administration released $52 million in federal funding to treat first responders through the Fire Department and a consortium of six hospitals, including The Mount Sinai Medical Center and Stony Brook University Medical Center. Since then, the demand for treatment has been so high that officials estimate they may have to start notifying clients by springtime to start seeking other treatment.

The federal money is currently limited to first responders. Residents, office workers and others who may suffer from the effects of exposure to Ground Zero do not qualify.

Last month, hundreds of 9/11 first responders turned out at a Manhattan forum to learn what treatment is available to them. The forum was organized by the World Trade Center Medical Monitoring Program based at Mount Sinai, which released a study in October showing that 60 percent of 9/11 first responders still suffer health effects, including reduced breathing capacity, pulmonary fibrosis and asbestosis.

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) said any lapse in funding means that 9/11 health sufferers "will once again be left out in the cold."

Deputy Mayor Ed Skyler, co-chair of Bloomberg's panel on 9/11 health issues, also attended the meeting.

"These are necessary programs to help those who answered the call when the city needed them the most, and we expect that the federal government will fulfill its obligation and continue this funding," he said later.

When the administration released the $52 million in the fall, Congressional officials said, the figure wasn't based on an estimate of the actual need. Clinton has submitted legislation that carries a $1.9 billion price tag for long-term treatment.

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

The Battle For Ground Zero, Part 201

The Post has an editorial up rounding up the latest controversy that was finally resolved; the way the names of those murdered on 9/11 would be placed on the memorial. It wasn't a perfect solution, but it beats the one that Arad had proposed.

Steve Cuozzo tells incoming Governor Spitzer to rebuild all the office space destroyed by 9/11, and provides compelling information to back up the plea. Meanwhile, Mayor Bloomberg has wanted to reduce the amount of office space in Lower Manhattan arguing that there isn't a need for the rebuilding of so much office space. I think that Bloomberg is dead wrong on his view of the real estate market, and his push to get development on the West Side in Midtown isn't getting people excited enough to actually take steps to build there. Companies instead are looking to Lower Manhattan and building there (Goldman Sachs) or leasing large amounts of space (Moodys at 7WTC).

Pataki continues to be defensive about his handling of the rebuilding at Ground Zero. Face it George, you didn't do a good job. You put someone who had absolutely no experience building skyscrapers and managing a project of this scope in charge of developing the master plan (Daniel Libeskind) whose vision for the site was quickly revised to face the engineering and technical realities of building skyscrapers. You let political correctness creep in with the IFC and Drawing Center, and it took a protracted battle to eject them from the site (though the Drawing Center would get money in return to build a gallery elsewhere in Lower Manhattan). The cost for the memorial is an incredible $500 million, and that's only after finding ways to cut the cost from an estimated $850 million-$1 billion. The design of the memorial is still widely criticized, though one major criticism, the way the names were arranged, has been resolved.

It's nice that George has stuck by the pledge to get the Freedom Tower built, but progress has been in fits and starts. And don't get me started about the debacle that is Fiterman Hall and the Deutsche Bank building. Fiterman Hall is still unoccupied and no plan is present to deconstruct that building that was too badly damaged to be salvaged. The Deutsche Bank building is undergoing the first phase of deconstruction, but that has been marred by the discovery of human remains years after searches were supposedly thoroughly undertaken. Remains may still be found elsewhere in the Ground Zero environs because every crevace and nook and cranny has yet to be explored. There is the distinct possibility that more remains may be found in the course of construction at Ground Zero as access roads were quickly paved so that access to the Pit was established so that the bulk of debris could be removed. As the site is developed, more finds may be inevitable.

UPDATE:
Deconstruction of the Deutsche Bank building, which had been interrupted by a worker dispute just a day after it began, will resume tomorrow as the workers resolved the dispute.

Meanwhile, it shouldn't be a surprise that people who were closer to Ground Zero have and retain more vivid memories of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, though one has to wonder that a sample size of 24 people is statistically significant.

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