U.S. Department of Transportation Announces $899 Million for Lower Manhattan Recovery Projects
Jul 19, 2005 By News Staff

The Bush Administration recently awarded nearly a billion dollars to the states of New York and New Jersey to be used for transit projects in and around the World Trade Center site. The $899 million total marks the second installment to help pay for work to rebuild the transit system destroyed by the September 11, 2001 attacks in Lower Manhattan, according to U.S. Secretary of Transportation Norman Y. Mineta.

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey (PANYNJ) received $478 million to construct a security center for the southern World Trade Center site. The security center will screen all vehicles for security threats and will be a vital component to the World Trade Center Master Plan. A second grant for $221 million has also been awarded for the Port Authority Trans-Hudson (PATH) terminal.

The New York State Department of Transportation will use an additional $200 million grant to rebuild the World Trade Center segment of Route 9A/West Street from West Thames Street to Chambers Street.

"These funds are critical to keep projects moving," Mineta said. "The grants are proof of the President's commitment to rebuilding Lower Manhattan," he added.

"A world-class transportation system is vital to the rebirth of Lower Manhattan," said FTA Administrator Jennifer L. Dorn. "We are working with Governor Pataki, Mayor Bloomberg and our other partners in the redevelopment effort to restore Lower Manhattan as an inviting gateway to the World Trade Center and a first class 24-hour live-and-work community."

To date, the Federal Transit Administration has awarded over $3.86 billion for Lower Manhattan recovery projects out of the $4.55 billion appropriated by Congress. That amount includes $2.95 billion, awarded for initial projects identified by the State of New York. Those projects included the permanent PATH terminal, Fulton Street Transit Center, South Ferry terminal station, as well as first phase of the Route 9A/West Street project.

http://www.govtech.net/magazine/channel_story.php/95246

By The Eyewitness News Investigators
(New York-WABC, July 19, 2005 ) — Tim Keller was a veteran fire department medic. He died a few weeks ago from an illness his family and doctors believe is related to his exposure to the toxic pile at ground zero.

At the time of Keller's death, he was also battling a bureaucracy that denied him benefits almost to the end.

Jim Hoffer joins us with his investigation.

FDNY medic Tim Keller saved many lives during his career, including his partners' during the World Trade Center attack. But when his life was threatened by lungs damaged during 9/11, no one, it seems, was watching his back.

FDNY medic Tim Keller loved to help people. His life is a testament to that: Rushing into a smoke filled apartment to save families, resuscitating a police officer who had stopped breathing, delivering his 26th baby - selfless acts that even caught the attention of powerful people.

It's no surprise that on 9/11, paramedic Keller nearly lost his life trying to rescue people at ground zero. He was right here when it all came down and Keller survived and spent weeks on the toxic pile at ground zero looking for any signs of life.

David Keller, Son: "Turning blue, coughing, not being able to breath and then just blacking out."

As Tim Keller's son David explains, about a year after 9/11, his father got real sick.

David Keller, Son: "He just got slower and slower and more tired, and always sleeping, for days at a time."

He was diagnosed as having severe chronic asthmatic bronchitis. A lung specialist found the likely cause exposure to the World Trade Center disaster.

But the city that so often benefited from Keller's bravery refused to recognize the connection and denied him workman's compensation and any 9/11 benefits. Too sick to work, he fell deep into debt, while prescriptions for much-needed medicine went unfilled.

David Keller, Son: "How can you be denied 9/11 benefits when you were there? It doesn't make sense."

Jim Hoffer: "Workman's comp?"

David Keller, Son: "No, nothing."

Finally, in April, the city began paying him a partial pension - $374 dollars a month. A few weeks ago, the 41-year-old Keller died from cardiac arrest, which his family and colleagues believe was caused by his prolonged battle to breath.

Don Faith, Union: "I have to say his ultimate demise was to blame in part that he couldn't get resources and medications he needed."

Dr. Stephen Levin, Mt. Sinai Medical Director: "It is outrageous that such behavior occurs."

The head of Mt. Sinai's World Trade Center's screening program says Keller's struggle to get medical benefits is happening to many others.

Dr. Stephen Levin: "It's clear that the system didn't respond to their needs the way we believe heroic people ought to be treated in our society."

A city spokesman says the compensation board found insufficient documentation to support Keller's claim that his illness was related to 9/11. The spokesperson estimates that 95 percent of claims related to 9/11 are accepted.

 http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/news/investiga...ators_emtdeath.html#

Ground Zero memorial must come first
 
When the Freedom Tower envisioned for the World Trade Center site was scrapped in May because the building failed to meet anti-terror security standards, Gov. Pataki assured one and all that the centerpiece of Ground Zero, the memorial to the lost, was fully on track.
Now, that's not so clear. No less a person than John Whitehead, who chairs both the state's rebuilding agency and the WTC charitable foundation, said last week that efforts to raise money for the memorial are being hampered by controversies swirling around who and what belongs on the site.

Nothing at Ground Zero is more important than the areas that will be dedicated to remembering what happened and who was lost on 9/11. To hear that the work of raising the half-billion needed for the memorial has been slowed was both disheartening and maddening. It's time, governor, to resolve fundamental questions that should have been answered long ago.

They relate, as they have for weeks, to the planned presence at Ground Zero of two cultural institutions, the International Freedom Center and the Drawing Center. The mission of the former is to pay tribute to mankind's march toward liberty. The latter has displayed works including political pieces that would be offensive there.

Some 9/11 family members say the site should be devoted to the events of that day, and they argue the cultural institutions will open sacred ground to inappropriate political debate that would be unstoppable under the First Amendment. Pataki responded that he would boot both organizations unless they gave an "absolute guarantee" of "total respect for the sanctity of that site." More is now required.

The governor must:


Demonstrate convincingly that such a guarantee would hold up under the First Amendment and that the state would have a way to enforce it.

Press the Freedom Center, which has promised to honor the dignity of the site, to be specific about its planned exhibits and programs. The center's stated intentions are admirable, but the public, including the families, needs the details in order to judge whether its materials belong at Ground Zero.

Give the Drawing Center a short deadline for providing the necessary guarantee. If the center's leaders feel they can't do so while maintaining artistic integrity, they'll have to bow out.

Clarify ASAP whether there are any serious thoughts of moving either cultural group away from the heart of Ground Zero, a step that would instantly diminish the controversy and dramatically change the nature of the WTC master plan. In one breath last week, Whitehead suggested that such a move might be both possible and impossible, adding to the confusion.
Immediate gubernatorial leadership is essential. The controversies that are hindering the sacred memorial must end.
 
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ideas_opin...28727p-280980c.html

Nine service awards given by governors

Associated Press


DES MOINES, Iowa - Governors took time Saturday from their annual summer meeting of the National Governors Association to honor nine state officials and volunteers with awards for public service.

According to the association, recipients were:

_Barry Maram, director of the Illinois Department of Public Aid, was honored for providing health care to those eligible for Medicaid and ensuring that children receive child support that is owed to them.

_Allen C. Harris, director of the Iowa Department for the Blind, for his work to help other blind Iowans. Harris, who became blind at age 15, worked as a teacher and wrestling coach before becoming an administrator.

_Antonia C. Novello, commissioner of New York State Department of Health and a former U.S. surgeon general, was honored for nearly 30 years of public health service. Novello is credited with expanding health care to the uninsured and strengthening New York's disaster preparedness.

_Bob Fisher, a shoe repairman from Wayzata, Minn., was given an award for his Sleep-Out. Fisher camped out for two weeks in the winter in 1996 to raise money for needy families. Nine years later, his annual fundraiser has collected more than $4 million.

_John C. Whitehead, a New York development official, was honored for helping to rebuild lower Manhattan after Sept. 11, 2001, and to raise funds for a memorial at the World Trade Center site.

_Pat Halpin-Murphy, of Pennsylvania, was honored for founding the Pennsylvania Breast Cancer Coalition. Halpin-Murphy, a cancer survivor, pushed for more research funding and raised public awareness.

_Violinist Aaron Dworkin, who was one of the few minorities in his school orchestra, and the Sphinx Organization, of Michigan, were honored for helping blacks and Latinos in urban schools learn about classical music.

_Pamela Bass-Bookey and Harry Bookey, of Iowa, were honored for helping to fund a lecture series and to transform Des Moines' century-old Masonic Temple, slated for demolition, into a center for the performing arts.

http://www.centredaily.com/mld/centredaily...litics/12151079.htm

Freedom's Courage
Final in a Series of Essays on Appreciating America's Freedoms
Like the air we breathe, most Americans assume our extraordinary freedoms will always be in abundant supply. It's only when those freedoms are threatened or when we are otherwise enlightened to the fact that many in our world live and die never knowing the blessings of liberty, that our appreciation for it grows. In this collection of short essays, seven Americans write about events in their lives that resulted in a deeper appreciation of freedom.

By Daniel Brasier
July 15, 2005

(AgapePress) - On September 10, 2001, freedom was merely a word; something I definitely took for granted. The next day, however, changed my view completely.

I am a survivor from the 9/11 World Trade Center attacks. On a day like that, you see more than a person should ever see in a lifetime. Nightmares become reality, and fear begins to dictate your very existence. I began to think that in this country, my home, even I -- would never be able to claim freedom again.

Freedom is defined as "liberty of a person from oppression or fear." I recently moved to New York after being away for nearly three years. When I first came back to this city, I didn't know if I could face these memories; but I have not only faced them, I have conquered them.

I don't shudder at the sound of a jet flying overhead anymore. I'm able to ride in elevators once again. I even begin each day with a subway ride into the bottom of Ground Zero.

Freedom to me is being able to hold my head up once more; being able to cut away the shackles of fear. I am free.

http://headlines.agapepress.org/archive/7/152005d.asp

What's the fuss at Ground Zero?
Culture dispute wastes time, money
 
July 14, 2005

The effort to dragoon Ground Zero into the culture wars is gaining momentum fast. If it succeeds, the results could be disastrous for plans to redevelop the 16-acre site into a gracious amenity that honors the dead as it celebrates life.

As John Whitehead, chairman of the World Trade Center Memorial Foundation, admitted recently, the brouhaha over a culture center near the planned 9/11 memorial has harmed fund-raising. What a pity. The fuss is thoroughly gratuitous.

 Despite the claims of some conservatives and the families of some 9/11 victims, there's no evidence that Ground Zero's planners will put a cultural center partial to anti-American propaganda next to a memorial to the 9/11 dead.

But never mind. Opponents of the International Freedom Center and the Drawing Center, two cultural organizations at the heart of the controversy, continue to stoke such fears.

...

http://www.newsday.com/news/printedition/o...ll=ny-opinion-print

It is still our home
 
Ground Zero neighborhood needs retail and culture
at World Trade Center site, says a downtown leader
 
By DAVE STANKE
 
Recent announcements that the Federal Transit Administration has awarded $699 million to the Port Authority for infrastructure work is welcome news for the future of downtown. Commitments by the World Trade Center Memorial Foundation to dedicate its first $500 million to the memorial and memorial center also may help move development forward, but it leaves at risk the important cultural facilities planned for the WTC site.
Sept. 11 changed lower Manhattan. As residents, we suffered the loss of neighbors and co-workers, friends and families. Many of us lost our homes or our businesses - and all of us, including the children who witnessed the attacks while fleeing their homes and schools, lost our sense of security. Almost four years later, our community remains haunted by the trauma and dismayed at the failure to begin rebuilding. We are determined to counter that with unshakable resilience. This is our home, and we will do all we can to ensure its recovery.

We eagerly anticipate the memorial. The spacious 6-acre memorial planned for the site, along with its halls and plazas and large memorial center dedicated entirely to the lives lost and events of the 11th, will offer poignant places for us to commemorate our heartbreaking losses.

Over the past 3-1/2 years, an unprecedented process structured by input offered by millions of people brought about the master plan. All who were a part of this process invested tremendous time and energy ensuring that the facilities would commemorate our loss and reflect our determination to overcome this disaster.

Now, a group of victims' family members, many of whom were a part of this very process, have raised concerns. They say not one square inch surrounding the World Trade Center should be devoted to anything that doesn't directly concern 9/11. They claim culture and retail do not belong at the site - that things like art and culture are a slap in the face to the victims and their families.

 
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ideas_opin...27866p-280250c.html

Downtown residents can tell you it would be a slap in the face not to include things like culture and retail. It would be a huge mistake not to rebuild lower Manhattan as a mixed-use district. We need to look to the future and build a community full of life. People live and work downtown. Facilities dedicated to freedom, art, film and the performing arts have the capacity to animate our neighborhood and maintain it as a world-class destination

In finding the balance between remembrance and resiliency, culture provides the glue that gives the site meaning. Cultural facilities are the venue in which important questions are considered, questions that overwhelmed us on 9/11. These considerations will occasionally be painful to us, but this makes them no less important.

To call for the removal of culture and retail as part of the rebuilding is to take direct aim at our efforts to rejuvenate a neighborhood struck by tragedy. It is disrespectful to the complex, emotional process we have collectively undertaken.

The terrorists aimed to attack our way of life. We will not permit those aims to prevail. Let's make sure lower Manhattan is a place that is both a commemoration of our tragic loss and a livable community, a place we remain proud to call home.


Stanke, a member of the Lower Manhattan Development Corp. WTC Memorial Center advisory committee,
is a leader of Battery Park City United.

Plan for 9/11 memorial advances — finally
By ELIZABETH GANGA
eganga@thejournalnews.com
THE JOURNAL NEWS
(Original publication: July 14, 2005)


NEW CASTLE — In what could be the beginning of the end of a long, convoluted controversy over the Sept. 11 memorial in Chappaqua, the Town Board has decided to move forward with a design that will include small pieces of World Trade Center steel in a secluded contemplation area.

The design still could change before a final vote to build the memorial. But the Town Board has agreed to proceed with an environmental review of the plans by Stephen Yarabek of Hudson & Pacific Designs. The board hopes to mark in some way the eventual memorial by this year's fourth anniversary of the terrorist attacks that killed three New Castle residents.

Unless problems develop with the design during the environmental review or the costs are higher than the town is willing to bear, Yarabek's design is likely to be the one built at the Duck Pond near downtown Chappaqua. It includes a seating area at the edge of the pond; farther down in the park, a memorial platform with commemorative plaques on a railing; and, down in a sunken garden, the memorial with pieces of steel from the Trade Center. The park's landscaping would be overhauled.

Supervisor Janet Wells said the process has been grueling, but the board felt Yarabek had considered many points of view in creating his plan.

"I really won't feel relief until we've had our vote, but I feel that we're on track," she said. Wells said there was a strong possibility the board will approve the design.

The memorial originally was conceived by local resident Michael Wolfensohn to honor his friend, Louis Inghilterra, who was killed in the attacks along with George Morell and Allan Shwartzstein. Wolfensohn got the approval of the Town Board in July 2003 to put a memorial he designed with the Trade Center steel at the Duck Pond. But after a controversy erupted and a lawsuit was filed, the Town Board decided to go through a new site selection process. It eventually settled again on the Duck Pond but then decided to hire a professional to design the memorial.

Wolfensohn said he is excited the long process seems to be coming to an end. But he knows, when it comes to the New Castle Sept. 11 memorial, the finish line can move suddenly.

"Am I 100 percent comfortable the steel will be there?" he said. "Not even a little bit."

Despite the years of debate that have gone into the memorial and its location, some residents still say that they haven't been allowed enough input into the final design. Michael Brown, who lives next to the Duck Pond and sued unsuccessfully to block the memorial in 2003, said he expected the town would have a meeting to discuss the design with the landscape architect. Instead, "the design was presented as basically a fait accompli," Brown said.

Brown and others object most strenuously to using the Trade Center steel, which he said would not contribute to healing but whose use is supported, according to Wolfensohn, by the widows of the three men who died that day.

"I think we all want the process to end, and we want it to end without the metal," Brown said.

Wells said that Yarabek was given all the materials from three years of meetings in which residents have talked about the memorial design.

http://www.thejournalnews.com/apps/pbcs.dl...WS02/507140343/1018

Suozzi Announces September 11 Fundraiser
Softball Tournament Proceeds Go to Nassau County Memorial
Nassau County Executive Thomas R. Suozzi joined the Nassau County 9/11 Memorial Foundation to announce that a Softball Tournament Fundraiser will be held at the Mitchel Field Athletic Complex during the weekend of July 23-24, 2005. Proceeds from the Tournament will go to the construction of the Nassau County 9/11 Memorial, which is scheduled to be completed on September 11, 2005.

"I am very pleased that we are able to host this fundraiser for the 9/11 Memorial and that so many Nassau residents will participate in the tournament," said County Executive Suozzi. "It will not only be a day of some great softball, but it is wonderful knowing that our efforts are going to such a worthwhile cause."

Teams participating in the Tournament include members of the Nassau County Police Department, Suffolk County Police Department and fire departments from all over Long Island. In addition, Long Island Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts and senior citizens will be volunteering at the event, which will include a Pee-Wee softball game for children, and music from the Westbury High School Choir.

Through the efforts of the Nassau County 9/11 Memorial Foundation, the memorial is currently being built at Eisenhower Park, which will honor the victims and heroes of the World Trade Center tragedy. The vision is to bring together the memories of the women and men of Nassau County who died on Sept. 11, 2001. The monument is estimated to cost up to $750,000 and will feature two semitransparent aluminum towers, representing the World Trade Center towers, rising 30 feet from a reflecting pool. It will also contain a wall with the names of 281 victims who lived in or had ties to Nassau, and two pieces of steel from the trade center's wreckage. The final design chosen was designed by Keith Striga of Valley Stream and Phil Gavosto of Glen Cove.

"The tragedy of September 11 has left an indelible mark on our county as well as our nation," said County Executive Suozzi. "Many of those who lost their lives were from Nassau, and it is my sincerest hope that once completed, the memorial will lend some solace to the pain we, as a county, still feel today."

County Executive Suozzi was joined by President Bush, Governor Pataki and victims' families in breaking ground for the memorial at a ceremony in 2004. The memorial will be the first and largest one completed to date in New York State.

For further information about the 9/11 Memorial please contact:

Nassau County 9/11 Memorial Project

Nassau County Department of Parks & Recreation

Administrative Building, Eisenhower Park

Hempstead Turnpike

East Meadow, NY 11554

(516) 572-0200

Email: NC911MemorialProject@hotmail.com

http://www.antonnews.com/illustratednews/2...ports/softball.html

Build a real memorial



A substantial number of families of those massacred in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks are angry about plans for a memorial at the site once occupied by the World Trade Center. They have good reason to be upset: Ultra-liberals seem to be intent on creating a "blame the victims" memorial.

Most Americans agree that the hundreds of people killed in the 9/11 attacks - in New York City, Washington, D.C., and rural Pennsylvania - should be remembered through some sort of formal national memorial. In addition, of course, such a memorial would serve to remind the world of the absolute evil of terrorism.
But that isn't what is being envisioned by a well-funded, influential group of liberals. They want an "International Freedom Center" focusing on "great moments in the worldwide struggle for freedom ... from slavery to the roots of the Sept. 11 attacks."

That makes the group's agenda quite clear. By equating a "struggle for freedom" with "the roots of the Sept. 11 attacks," the goal certainly appears to be to excuse - even justify - the terrorists in some way.

There is no excuse, no justification, for terrorism of the kind that struck America on Sept. 11, 2001.

New York City officials shouldn't allow the memories of those killed on that day to be sullied by a "memorial" that shows sympathy in any way to the terrorists. If those planning the memorial want to consider the idea of freedom, they need to ponder the thought that on Sept. 11, 2001, terrorists took away the most basic freedom from about 3,000 people - that of life itself.

http://www.minotdailynews.com/edit/story/0714202005_edt14EDIT.asp

Foundation Considers Removing Culture Center From Ground Zero
July 14 (Bloomberg) -- The World Trade Center Memorial Foundation, acknowledging protests by relatives of Sept. 11 victims, is taking ``one last look'' at alternatives to placing a ``museum of freedom'' and art museum adjacent to the planned memorial, foundation chairman John Whitehead said.

Possible substitutes could include another spot within the 16-acre trade center site, outside the section that includes the foundations of the destroyed twin towers, or ``immediately beyond the 16 acres,'' he said.

The decision to reconsider the location of the International Freedom Center and the Drawing Center came at a closed meeting of the foundation's board yesterday, and followed protests by 14 family organizations who say the institutions would bring political themes too close to the symbolic resting place of the 2,749 people killed in the 2001 terrorist attack.

``To date we haven't been able to find a place, but we will make one final effort,'' Whitehead said at a meeting of the Lower Manhattan Development Corp., the state agency steering downtown redevelopment, which he also chairs.

Whitehead and development agency chairman Stefan Pryor emphasized their support for the $12 billion World Trade Center master plan, three years in the making. That plan calls for a 250,000-square-foot cultural building northwest of the memorial, surrounded to the east and north by skyscrapers and shops.

Removing the freedom center and art museum from that spot would be ``in violation'' of architect Daniel Libeskind's master plan, Whitehead said, ``but we're taking a look. We've been asked to do it. It's not likely we will find such a place, but we will make every effort to see if that would be fruitful.''

Family Coalition

About 20 members of the family coalition, loosely organized under the name ``Take Back the Memorial,'' said that Whitehead, by expressing doubt that the cultural center could be moved, was short-circuiting the review.

``I believe they got the bit in their teeth, and they want to just bull ahead, and to heck with everybody,'' said Jack Lynch, a leader of the Coalition of 9/11 Families and father of a firefighter killed in the attack. ``It's the elite trying to think for the average American,'' Lynch said.

Tom Bernstein, co-founder of the freedom center, which plans exhibits and programs on the history mankind's struggle for freedom, last week pledged to avoid ``acrimonious'' programming, to honor victims with prominent displays, and to include family members in programming decisions. The center will also be made smaller and moved farther from the twin tower footprints, said Bernstein, the president of Chelsea Piers, a Manhattan recreation complex, who is a friend and former business partner of President George W. Bush.

Whitehead said the foundation is in discussions with both the freedom center and the art museum about restricting its programming in light of family sensitivities.

``First Amendment rights are one of the subjects that make these discussions difficult,'' he said in answer to a reporter's question.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=100...5qRzuTSIsQ&refer=us