The WTC in November

1WTC as seen from Greenwich Street at Dey Street inside Ground Zero. The building in the foreground is the National 9/11 Museum.

1WTC reflecting in 4WTC.

Looking across West Street towards the 9/11 Memorial, the Vehicle Security Center, and where the St. Nicholas Orthodox Church may eventually be built.

Looking across West Street and seeing 4WTC on the left and the stump of 3WTC rising in the middle. The foreground buildings are ventilation and utility facilities for the WTC complex.

Looking north towards 1WTC and the completed base. The 9/11 memorial grove can be seen in the mid-ground.

Taking the escalator to or from Brookfield Place (former WFC) gives you a great view of the steel structure that shows that form doesn't have to follow function without being artful.

Looking across the Hudson River at Lower Manhattan from Hoboken.

 

 

The Rebuilding of Ground Zero, Part 169

Yesterday's commemoration of the 11th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks also coincided with news reports about a deal struck to resume construction on the National 9/11 Museum, which had been in limbo since the Port Authority and Memorial Foundation fought over who was responsible for construction costs.

The Port Authority claimed that the Foundation owed it $300 million, but ended up settling for $17 million instead. The Port Authority will also supposedly figure out a way to find another $150 million in cost savings, but who knows how that will happen when the Port Authority has seen its construction costs soar towards double their initial estimates for work done at the site. Why did the Port Authority hold up construction for a year if it was willing to settle for $17 million (which is a drop in the bucket in its multibillion dollar budget). The NY Post editorial page has similar questions. That's a billion dollar question as the agency continues to show itself as incapable of controlling costs or making prudent business decisions to manage the site reconstruction.

Everything at the site has cost far more than originally anticipated and taken far longer to complete than hoped.

Work on the Vehicle Security Center has been progressing, and new details have emerged about its street-level design and the incorporation of the St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church and Fritz Koenig's The Sphere sculpture figure prominently on the site that is immediately to the south of the 9/11 Memorial below Liberty Street.

Now, the steel latticework of the VSC’s truck ramp is clearly visible from nearby towers. In addition to being the entrance and exit for deliveries, the center of the doughnut-shaped ramp will also support the 60 by 60 foot church sanctuary. Steve Plate, the Port’s director of construction, said work on the park will begin this time next year. AECOM is designing an open space that will swell approximately 30 feet above the Liberty Street entrance to the VSC, creating a man-made hill on the south side of the World Trade Center site. State of the art security, engineered by Liberty Security Partners, will allow all vehicles to be x-rayed on their way in.

The church sanctuary will rise another 56 feet above Liberty Street, a full 78 feet above the sidewalk. Church architect Nicholas P. Koutsomitis said that the Port stipulated that the church not rise above the September 11 Memorial Museum’s roof plane. An additional emergency exit will drop Cedar Street below grade and into the VSC complex.

Fritz Koenig’s Sphere for Plaza Fountain, which sustained substantial damage on 9/11 and now sits in Battery Park, appears destined for the VSC site as well. It appears prominently in the renderings, and Koutsomitis confirmed that the sculpture will be included in the new park.

The Sphere has been a particularly contentious issue. It was recovered from Ground Zero after the attacks, damaged but mostly intact and it became a symbol from the attacks. It was temporarily placed in Battery Park City, but that site is now being developed so an alternative site was proposed within the WTC Memorial. The Port Authority and Memorial Foundation balked by claiming that the site couldn't support the bulk of the statute, but it now appears that the Sphere will figure prominently in the garden area between West Street and the church that will be constructed atop the VSC.

I'm heartened to see that the Sphere will be placed in a location of significance considering its iconic status and relevance to the WTC site.

Meanwhile, at least a portion of the VSC site may be sold to the Port Authority by the LMDCC and the Port Authority will turn over ownership of the memorial and museum to the memorial foundation.

A $440 Million Spat Has Put Future of WTC Museum In Doubt

Leave it to the Port Authority of New York to find yet another way to slow down the reconstruction efforts at Ground Zero. This time, they're claiming that the National September 11 Memorial & Museum Foundation owes them $300 million. The Foundation, whose chairman is none other than Mayor Mike Bloomberg, claims that the Port Authority owes them $140 million. That's a $440 million spread, and one that has brought construction on the museum to a standstill.

The Port Authority, which is responsible for the construction of the museum, claims that the foundation owes it $300 million. The foundation claims that the authority actually owes it $140 million because of delays in the project.

The dispute has been simmering for some time, and the work slowdown was reported in November. Thursday, however, was the first time Mr. Bloomberg and other officials acknowledged that the discord would cause the museum not to open as planned.

“There is no chance of it being open on time,” the mayor said. “Work has basically stopped.”

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said recently on a radio program that the Port Authority was “on the verge” of suing the foundation, but the mayor and the Port Authority said on Thursday that negotiations were continuing.

“I’m sure we are going to work something out with the Port Authority,” Mr. Bloomberg said. “They’ve got a difficult budget situation. I’m sympathetic to that.”

The projected September 2012 opening of the museum is no longer feasible, and unless construction resumes quickly, an early 2013 opening would be in doubt as well.

The Port Authority, which has a long history of dragging its feet on reconstruction at Ground Zero, is up to its old tricks. It delayed reconstruction efforts for years while in spats with Silverstein Properties over building the Freedom Tower and then 2, 3, and 4 WTC. It delayed negotiations and reconstruction efforts for the St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church that was destroyed just south of the WTC complex by the collapsing towers.

On top of that is the inability of the Port Authority to contain costs that are within its control. It is currently more than $1.2 billion over budget on the PATH hub construction (a $2.2 billion project that is now costing $3.4 billion and counting).

The Rebuilding of Ground Zero, Part 148

All around Ground Zero, construction crews are busy working on the skyscrapers that are fast rising on the site. 1WTC (the Freedom Tower) is now approaching 90 stories tall, and is easily viewed from miles around. 4WTC is also rising and concrete is being poured on the core for 3WTC above street level. At the same time, steel is now rising above street level for 2WTC, which means that the Church/Greenwich corridor skyscrapers are all seeing work done at or above street level.

That's a tremendous amount of progress, but one area that hasn't gotten a lot of attention is the southern quadrant, where the vehicle security center and St. Nicholas Orthodox church will be located. A design has been finalized for the church, which was destroyed by the collapsing towers. The Port Authority and church representatives have been haggling over the details of rebuilding for years, and the demolition of the former Deutsche Bank building further complicated matters because the church location was compromised by the bank building.

Under significant pressure from Governor Cuomo, the Port Authority will allow St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church to rebuild their destroyed church on a World Trade Center site. An earlier deal had the state giving the church $20 million to rebuild while the Port invested $40 million in a blast-proof platform for the building over a new vehicle security center beneath. That deal moved the church up the street from their old location at 155 Cedar Street and onto a 4,100 square foot site at the corner of Greenwich and Liberty streets. Under the new agreement the church will stay on Liberty Street and the Port will build a $25 million platform, with the church raising its own funds to rebuild.

If 4,100 square feet doesn't sound like a lot of space for the church footprint, you'd be right. It's tiny. It's akin to a 41 x 100 parcel and is tiny compared to other structures on site, yet this site is among the more complex arrangements because of the interaction between the church and the vehicle security center beneath it.

The Rebuilding of Ground Zero, Part 146

The long-delayed deal between the Port Authority and St. Nicholas Orthodox Church has finally been done. The church had been promised that it would be rebuilt, but the Port Authority never attached a dollar figure, location, or size to that commitment.

It has now.

The church will get $25 million towards rebuilding, and that's an amount smaller than had been hoped for.

The church, which is to include a nondenominational bereavement center, will sit on a platform above the helical underground ramp of the vehicle security center, through which trucks and buses will travel from street level to the subterranean loading and parking areas serving the new World Trade Center.

A smaller church building will allow engineers to take advantage of the current design of that helical ramp, thereby eliminating the need for the extensive redesign and structural reinforcement that the larger plans would have required. Because there will be no fundamental change to the underground layout, officials of the state and the archdiocese said the St. Nicholas project would not delay or impede construction of the vehicle security center, which is expected to be completed in 2013.

The Port Authority estimates that it will spend about $25 million to construct the platform on which St. Nicholas will sit and provide the necessary utility hookups. The authority had balked at earlier estimates of $40 million, and it will not make a $20 million contribution to the archdiocese, as had been contemplated in earlier discussions.

From the platform up, financing would be the church’s responsibility. While it is impossible to estimate the cost with any precision until the church has been designed, the Rev. Mark Arey, the ecumenical officer of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese and a spokesman for the rebuilding effort, said a $10 million construction budget would not surprise him. With a base of several million dollars of spontaneous contributions, in addition to insurance proceeds, Father Arey said that sum could be raised quickly.

The delays were due to the inability to timely demolish the former Deutsche bank building that sat like a hulking ruin along the south side of Ground Zero, and now that it has been demolished, work can proceed on the church and the vehicle security center. The Port Authority will build the platform on which the church will rest, and because of its siting, it will not be as costly or as difficult to complete.

Frankly, this is a deal that should have been reached years ago, but for the failures of the Port Authority to not only contain costs on the PATH transit hub, but because of its responsibility and liabilities to the church. Had the PATH reconstruction not gone more than $1 billion over its estimated costs, the Port Authority would have had the money to make this happen much sooner (and wouldn't have needed to impose massive fare and toll hikes on its transit operations).

The Rebuilding of Ground Zero, Part 129

The following video shows the installation of the first glass panels on the Freedom Tower. Since that video was shot, about a dozen floors have been glassed in, and work continues following the erection of the steel, concreting the core and floors, and fireproofing:



Meanwhile, the St. Nicholas church saga continues. The New York Observer reports that the Church has been approached on more than a few occasions to sell the property adjacent to the World Trade Center complex for multiple millions but refused to do so on the general principle.

For the church, it's not about the money. They want to rebuild on that parcel of land. It's up to the church and Port Authority to make that happen.

UPDATE:
Plans for a Windows on the World restaurant at 1WTC have been nixed over cost concerns and the ability to find a vendor willing to take on a money loser.

UPDATE:
Here's an overview photo showing the 9/11 memorial site. If you look closely around the memorial pools, you can see the installation of the bronze name plaques listing those who were murdered on 9/11, and which include the names of those killed in the 1993 WTC bombing. The plaques are currently being installed around the North pool (the one on the right in the photo) and are covered in fabric to protect them during the ongoing construction:

The Rebuilding of Ground Zero, Part 127

What's rebuilding at Ground Zero without the filing of lawsuits? The latest lawsuit was filed by the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America against the Port Authority for reneging on its promises to rebuild St. Nicholas Church, which was destroyed by falling debris on 9/11.

The St. Nicholas Church was built in 1916 and was crushed when the World Trade Center towers collapsed. As part of the neighborhood's reconstruction, the Port Authority proposed a swap of the church property for a piece of land down the street so that the agency could build a center for screening vehicles. In exchange, the agency would give the church millions of dollars to build a bigger church.

The church says the two sides had mostly agreed on the terms when the Port Authority abruptly pulled out of talks in 2009. The Port Authority claims the church was demanding too much money.

"After eight months of negotiations in which the demands of the Orthodox Church continued to increase over and above what was originally agreed to in 2008, the Port Authority had to make a practical decision to move on or risk further delaying the entire World Trade Center project," the agency said in a written statement.

The Port Authority has said it offered $20 million of financing, plus as much as $40 million to cover extra costs related to the construction of a Port Authority parking lot under the church. It claims the church wanted a building six times bigger than its original one.

The church said that was only fair because it was giving up the valuable "air rights" over its original site. Air rights allow builders to put skyscrapers on small pieces of land.

The church was also planning on building a non-sectarian memorial on part of its site open to all faiths to contemplate and reflect.

Talks fell apart last year, and the Port Authority hasn't taken any action to rebuild or advance the talks even though the former Deutsche Bank building has now been fully dismantled.

Meanwhile, planners for the 9/11 Memorial say that access to the memorial will be limited for several years once the memorial opens to the public in September because of the ongoing construction immediately adjacent to the memorial that limits how many people can safely view the memorial.

Organizers will observe strict capacity limits for safety reasons, Mr. Daniels said. Plans call for a limit of 1,500 visitors at a time, with special consideration given to relatives of Sept. 11 victims.

Visitors will have to sign up online for available spots and print tickets.

The foundation president presented details of the opening to a downtown Manhattan community board on Monday night.

The 1,776-foot 1 World Trade Center, formerly known as the Freedom Tower, is being built just northwest of the memorial site and will not open until 2013. Hundreds of trees will still need to be planted on the eight-acre memorial plaza after Sept. 11, 2011, and cobblestones will need to be filled in.

The transit hub will not be completed until at least 2015. Visitors from the general public will be allowed in Sept. 12, the day after a 10th-anniversary ceremony for invited guests.

Priority access would be given to families of those victims who were murdered on 9/11 and people would have to receive time-stamped ticketing to access the site.

How the memorial organizers are going to be able to accommodate family members remains to be seen.

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 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 116

Construction is proceeding all around Ground Zero as the Freedom Tower (1WTC) and 4WTC both rise gradually above the site. The museum and memorial spaces continue to be built out.

At the same time, the Winter Garden, which is located in the World Financial Center across West Street and was wrecked by falling debris on 9/11 is in for a makeover. The Winter Garden had connected to the World Trade Center with a pedestrian bridge before the 9/11 attacks, but the new WTC complex will connect with the World Financial Center via an underground passage that will link up with the Santiago Calatrava-designed transit hub and the upgraded Fulton Street station.

The Winter Garden is one of the grand public spaces in the City and the staircase is one of the reasons.

However, the underground connector means that the current grand staircase may disappear so that the frontage with West Street can be opened up. Brookfield Properties, which operates the Winter Garden, has proposed a new design for the building.

Brookfield also plans to create a two-level market and 714-seat food court in the retail space just south of the Winter Garden, with cafes and test kitchens by the city’s top restaurateurs.

David Cheikin, vice president of leasing for Brookfield, said he hopes to revive the Financial Center’s sleepy, underutilized retail by serving local residents in addition to office workers.

"We believe we can take [the WFC] from a five-day-a-week retail corridor to a seven-day [corridor]," Cheikin said Monday night.

Many Battery Park City residents strongly object to demolishing the Grand Staircase, which was rebuilt after 9/11 and has since become a place of community gathering. City Planning Commissioner Amanda Burden also wants to preserve the stairs.

However, Brookfield executives said that if the stairs stay in place, they would create a choke point by blocking the exit of the new pedestrian tunnel beneath West Street, scheduled to open by the end of 2012.

"We like those stairs, too," Lawrence Graham, a Brookfield vice president, told CB1 Monday. "We wish we could have found something different. Obviously, it would have been cheaper for us [to keep the stairs in place]."

Meanwhile, Fiterman Hall is rising adjacent to 7WTC between West Broadway and Greenwich Streets. Steel has reached 6 stories above street level.

It will start receiving the brick cladding on its exterior in coming weeks and the exterior work should be complete within a year.

At the same time, the Port Authority is looking to restart talks over the fate of the St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church, which was destroyed by the collapsing towers. The site is adjacent to the former Deutsche Bank building, which is thankfully in the final stages of demolition more than nine years after the attacks.

UPDATE:
A LMDC Committee is proposing a reallocation of funds to cover construction of a performing arts center, which may end up being built on the site of the former Deutsche Bank building. The Joyce Theater is the primary tenant for the performing arts center, but it is quite likely to be joined by at least one other group so as to make the most of the space.

A committee of the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation on Wednesday recommended that the corporation allocate up to $100 million for the performing arts center planned for ground zero. The money would come from a pool of some $200 million formerly designated for utility companies. At the corporation’s Wednesday board meeting, Kate D. Levin, the New York City cultural affairs commissioner, said the money was important “to fulfill this critical part of the master plan.”

The financing, which requires approval by the full board, would add to $50 million in federal money set aside for the project, which is controlled by the development corporation. Still unresolved is whether to build the performing arts center on the World Trade Center site, as called for in the master plan, or at 130 Liberty Street, site of the former Deutsche Bank building. The center’s primary tenant is to be the Joyce Theater, which presents dance.

The Rebuilding of Ground Zero, Part 111

After years of delays and controversy, it now appears that 1WTC (Freedom Tower) is finally getting its due. In fact, it is one of the hottest properties in the city as major companies are looking at its floor plan to consolidate operations in a modern office building built to the most current specifications.

Believe it or not, Bank of America — having comfortably settled into its grand new tower at 1 Bryant Park — is on the prowl for up to 1 million square feet more of office space in Manhattan.

And that could spell more good news for 1 World Trade Center, the supertall, and suddenly superhot, Ground Zero tower now under construction by the Port Authority.

Condé Nast recently signed a letter of intent with the PA for about 1 million square feet in the 2.6 million square-foot skyscraper, and this column last month broke the news that Bank of NY Mellon is at least taking a good look at it.
MAKE ROOM: Bank of America is inquiring about space at 1 WTC, the suddenly super-hot, tower under construction by the Port Authority.

Now, we’ve learned, BofA has requests for proposals out with landlords both in Midtown and downtown to replace roughly 1 million square feet it has in some older buildings including 1185 Sixth Ave. and 114 West 47th St., where leases expire in a few years.

4 WTC is still under construction, but steel rising above its pedestal base is delayed pending a final financing agreement between the Port Authority and Silverstein Properties.

Conde Nast is already planning on a 1 million sf allotment of space at the Freedom Tower. Vanatone is also expected to have about 400,000 sf of space. With Bank of America or Bank of New York looking at 1 million sf of space, that could potentially speak for nearly all of the 2.6 million sf space in the tower. That speaks volumes for the belief that the real estate market would more than accommodate the construction of office space at Ground Zero to replace that which was destroyed in the 9/11 attacks.

In fact, the demand seems to vindicate the vision of Larry Silverstein who vowed to rebuild the office space despite the souring economic climate. Tenants want modern office space and environmentally sound construction (LEED classification) because it reduces costs. The Ground Zero construction fits that bill and it's interesting to watch how demand has grown for the office space at Ground Zero.

While much of the focus recently has been on the Cordoba House proposal near Ground Zero, the pleas by St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church to rebuild on its site adjacent to where 2 WTC collapsed atop the church have gone unanswered and unfulfilled.

Unlike some religious leaders who have spoken in favor of the Muslim center, including the pastor of Trinity Wall Street, the historic Episcopal church near ground zero, Bishop Andonios said he and other Greek Orthodox leaders remained neutral.

“We didn’t want to say anything that might jeopardize the plans for rebuilding our church,” he said in a telephone interview. “That is our No. 1 concern: building our church.”

Stephen Sigmund, a spokesman for the Port Authority, said there was never any doubt that the church would be rebuilt. In 2008, the authority agreed to accommodate a 24,000-square-foot church building just east of St. Nicholas’s original location on Cedar Street, and promised $20 million to subsidize construction. But the following year, he said, final negotiations broke down over the precise siting and size of the building.

Bishop Andonios said the issues were more complex than that, and he criticized the Port Authority as having “cut off all communications” with church officials. He expressed some discomfort at stepping into the dispute on the side of those who are adamantly opposed to the Cordoba project.

“To us, this is an opportunity for everyone — to see some progress in our negotiations with the Port Authority,” Bishop Andonios said. “But also, for the people involved in the mosque, this controversy is their opportunity to dialogue with the community; to reach a better understanding of people’s sensitivities, perhaps.”

It was the news media, and then a number of political candidates, who first brought attention to the purported disparity in the official treatment of the developers of the Islamic center and of the Orthodox church, the bishop said.

“Some Greek-American newspaper reporters called me first,” Bishop Andonios said. “Then I heard from the candidates. Then it was Fox News.”

The situations are not analogous - the church and Port Authority have to work out a deal to relocate and rebuild and the Port Authority and Church agreed in principle that rebuilding would happen.

The delays are due in part to the continuing saga of the deconstruction of the former Deutsche bank building and using the church site as a staging area for construction. Once the former Deutsche bank building is demolished, staging for the rest of Ground Zero can proceed on that site (which will be used as the vehicle security center and possible office tower (5WTC)).

UPDATE:
Silverstein and the Port Authority are still at odds over financing on 4WTC, and a deadline to get a deal done so that Silverstein can ready bonds this fall is nearing.