Fitting Tribute
 
Rockaway park honors 9/11 victims
 
BY WARREN WOODBERRY JR.
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
 
The first time she ever saw Tribute Park, Peggy Glenn remembers, there was a fire truck parked alongside it.
Glenn, who owns Firefighters Bookstore in Huntington Beach, Calif., was riding through Rockaway Beach in the car of a Long Island friend of hers last week when they spotted the truck - and the park - and decided to investigate further.

"My friend said, 'I don't know what that park is all about, but it has a beautiful view of the city.'"

To Glenn's surprise, it also contained a special memorial to the firefighters who lost their lives in the 2001 terror attacks - situated with a full view of the lower Manhattan skyline where the World Trade Center towers once stood.

The names of the 343 FDNY members killed on 9/11 are etched on a huge granite stone, topped with a carved stone firefighter's hat.

The the fire truck was there because several firefighters had stopped by to see the new memorial.

"Some of these people [memorialized] here are authors of books I sold, and some were personal friends and customers," said Glenn, the 22-year bookstore owner. "It's like serendipity."

After four years of planning and construction, Tribute Park opened Nov. 6 at the end of Beach 116th St. off Beach Channel Drive in Rockaway Park.

It also features a patch of bricks inscribed with the names of the 70 Rockaway residents - and a separate memorial honoring the 22 cops - who were killed when the twin towers collapsed.

Visitors to the park last week walked slowly, glancing down at the path of inscribed bricks. Landscaped, the triangular park extends from the sea wall over Jamaica Bay and offers a panoramic view of the Manhattan skyline.

In the center of the park is a large slanted stone mariner's compass that allows visitors to read the names of peninsula neighborhoods while viewing the city skyline.

At the far end is a stone gazebo with a compass on its floor that points to where the Trade Center towers once stood. Plans call for the gazebo to be topped with a dome fashioned out of faceted glass by local artist Pat Clark that will also honor the memories of the 70 local citizens killed on 9/11.

The half-acre parcel had been an overgrown field that anglers once used to gain access to the bay. After the land was cleared in early 2001 for a simulated Viking landing event, community leaders mobilized to make it into a park.

Rockaway Chamber of Commerce president John Lapore said it was decided that funds collected for a memorial to the local 9/11 dead would go toward building the $700,000 park.

"When people saw the smoke coming out of the towers, people were just drawn to that spot," Lapore said. "People watched the towers come down from that spot, and it left a mark on them."

"It's a little sad," said visitor Alice Smith, 74, of Rockaway Park as she looked down at the memorial path of bricks. "because you see the names of so many young people who are no longer with us."

 http://www.nydailynews.com/boroughs/story/365574p-311335c.html

Businesses far from Ground Zero get 9/11 loans
By TERRY CORCORAN


YORKTOWN — Several people interviewed yesterday found it hard to swallow that millions of dollars in low-interest loans intended to help businesses hurt by the Sept. 11 attacks went to Dunkin' Donuts franchises in places as far-flung as Ohio, Georgia and Vermont.

"That's so messed up," said Jackie Arlia, 15, a Yorktown High School student who was visiting with friends outside the Dunkin' Donuts on Downing Drive.

"Twenty million dollars should have gone to businesses affected by 9/11," said Anthony Finochio, 23, of Ossining. "How the hell did Dunkin' Donuts get that money? It just doesn't sound right."

The federal Small Business Administration already had been chided by Congress for some of the low-interest Supplemental Terrorist Activity Relief Act loans given in the wake of the terror attacks, and the New York Post yesterday listed 25 Dunkin' Donuts franchises that got some $20 million, including one in Yorktown that got $1.3 million. The SBA did not return calls for comment yesterday and the Post didn't specify which of two Yorktown franchises received the money.

The manager of the shop on Crompond Road near the Taconic State Parkway said that one did not get a loan, and it was possible it went to a franchise that has a Yorktown Heights mailing address but operates stores elsewhere. The manager of the Downing Drive store was not in yesterday, according to employees.

The report didn't sit well with Pelham Manor resident Debra Burlingame. Her brother, Charles Burlingame, was the pilot whose plane was flown into the Pentagon.

"What's sad about this is that there were small businesses in lower Manhattan that were fatally damaged by 9/11. Some of them today, the ones that managed to salvage their businesses, have still not recovered, and some of them have not gotten the kind of assistance they should have gotten," she said while calling for an investigation.

Sen. Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., said he found nothing tasteful about the news.

"It is truly a sad commentary that assistance meant to help companies and industries recover from the worst terrorist attack our nation has ever seen is instead being used to help refurbish doughnut shops thousands of miles and lifetimes away from the true impact of 9/11," Schumer said.

Ida Vellone of Baldwin Place said that while she didn't think it right that money intended to help lower Manhattan businesses ended up in places like Essex Junction, Vt., some 300 miles north of Manhattan, she'd probably continue to buy the coffee.

"I don't think it's right," Vellone said as she rushed from the Dunkin' Donuts to pick up her grandchild. "I think those loans should have stayed in New York City."

A company spokeswoman said Dunkin' Donuts did not encourage its franchisees to obtain STAR loans.

"Franchisees have the option to choose the lender they want to work with, and the lender then provides any and all information regarding loans," Jayne Fitzspatrick said.

Garrett Banks, 17, a Croton-Harmon High School junior was visiting a Dunkin' Donuts with his friend, senior Madisyn Murphy.

While Murphy, 17, said she didn't like federal funds intended to help Lower Manhattan businesses ending up hundreds of miles from Ground Zero, Banks said it wouldn't keep him from enjoying Dunkin' Donuts.

"They're too good," said Banks.

http://www.thejournalnews.com/apps/pbcs.dl...1150318/1023/NEWS07

 Convio, Inc. Continues Steady Growth With Record Third Quarter; Increases Year-Over-Year Sales by Nearly 120 Percent

AUSTIN, Texas --(Business Wire)-- Nov. 15, 2005 -- Convio, Inc. -- the leading provider of software and services to help nonprofits use the Internet for building strong constituent relationships and driving support -- recorded its best quarter in the history of the company during the third quarter, growing sales nearly 120 percent compared to the same quarter last year.

Convio continues to increase its customer roster and now serves more than 450 organizations from diverse segments of the nonprofit sector. The company's newest customers include the World Trade Center Memorial Foundation, Catholic Relief Services and four new affiliates of The Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation.

http://www.tmcnet.com/usubmit/2005/nov/1205303.htm

WTC foundation plans ad campaign in spring

NEW YORK (AP) _ The foundation raising money for the World Trade Center memorial and other cultural space at ground zero said Tuesday that a major advertising agency and a council of industry leaders would donate their services to create a fund-raising ad campaign in the spring.

The World Trade Center Memorial Foundation announced a 27-member advisory council to help create the national campaign. TBWA/Chiat/Day, an agency with clients including Apple Computer Inc., McDonald's and Sprint/Nextel, has volunteered its services to create the ads, the foundation said.
 
 The foundation has raised more than $100 million privately to build and run a memorial to victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks; a memorial museum; a cultural building and a performing arts complex. It has set a goal of $500 million, although budgets for the memorial and other cultural buildings are not finalized.

http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/new...ny-region-apnewyork

Starting Over at Ground Zero
Why a Spanish architect is the man to design an American icon
Ronald Bailey

It has to be faced. The current plan for the restoring the World Trade Center site in New York City is just plain ugly. Now is the time to stop it.

First, Daniel Libeskind must go. He is the architect in charge of the site plan which is problematic enough, but he also tried to push through his half-baked notion of a building that somehow mirrored the pose of the Statue of Liberty holding her torch aloft. And he was going to decorate it with wind turbines that would no doubt break down and look pathetic.

Once Libeskind has been sent packing, the horrible Skidmore, Owings, Merrill design for the Freedom Tower must be tossed into the garbage. The concept of constructing the tower on a 200-foot tall base consisting of a blank reinforced concrete wall covered in steel and titanium represents a massive a failure of imagination. The notion is that such a bastion will protect the building against truck bombs. But look, the goal of any future terrorist would be to knock down the Freedom Tower, not just muss it up. After all, they wouldn't want to be seen as mere second-rate Osama bin Laden wannabes.

Fortunately, we don't have to worry much about another hijacked airplane being crashed into the new Freedom Tower. Why not? It's not because of the super duper security bestowed on us by the Transportation Security Agency, but because I believe that no American airline passengers will ever allow their planes to be commandeered again. Passengers would jump would-be hijackers even faster than the heroes on United Flight 93 did.

So the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation (LMDC) and other powers-that-be need to challenge a new architect to come up some more ingenious design that would enable the building to withstand a blast from a tractor trailer full of explosives. That should be possible without putting up the moral equivalent of the Orthanc Tower in Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. Even the original Twin Towers in 1993 withstood the blast of a 1300 pound bomb in a Ryder van parked in their basement.

The current version of the Freedom Tower would be a grim structure to which people will go to toil and will flee as soon as the workday ends. The design includes no shopping, no restaurants, no street life, nothing at all to invite the rest of the world to visit and linger in downtown Manhattan. The terrorists have indeed won if we believe that we must live and work inside hideous fortresses.

Fortunately, I don't believe that the LMDC has far to look to find the right architect to restore Manhattan's injured skyline and cityscape. I nominate Santiago Calatrava. Calatrava has already been selected to design the glorious new PATH train commuter hub at the WTC site. While nearly every other aspect of the reconstruction of the WTC site remains controversial, Calatrava's PATH station design has gained near universal applause.

Calatrava makes concrete soar, fly, dance, and play. Noted for his innovative and elegant bridges, transportation hubs, and public buildings like opera houses and museums, Calatrava is now planning inspired skyscrapers. For example, in New York City, he has already designed an 835 foot residential tower just a few blocks from the WTC site at 80 South Street. In Chicago, Calatrava recently unveiled his plan for a 2000 foot residential tower, which would be the tallest building in the United States. The powers-that-be in New York should give Calatrava a chance to do for the whole WTC site what he has already done for the site's $2 billion transportation hub.

There is still time to fix the architectural mistakes of the past four years at the World Trade Center site. The victims of the 9/11 atrocities, the residents of New York City, and the citizens of the United States deserve better than lowest common denominator design by committee. By destroying the Twin Towers, radical Islamist criminals made them symbols of freedom. Whatever new buildings rise from the WTC site must be commercially practical, but they should also stand as a rebuke to the enemies of liberty everywhere. Terrorists can blow up one set of buildings, but free people should respond by boldly raising from the ashes structures even more magnificent than the ones that were destroyed.

http://www.reason.com/links/links111505.shtml

Local fountain company selected for NYC contract
NMBW Staff
An Albuquerque fountain designer and manufacturer has received a consultation and design contract from the Lower Manhattan Development Corp. for the World Trade Center Memorial Fountain in New York City.
 
Roman Fountains Corp. will be reviewing the proposed current water feature design to determine ways to cut costs. The local firm also will be assessing the "impact of value engineering savings on the overall architecture design concepts for both the World Trade Center Memorial and Memorial Museum," according to a company news release.

The Lower Manhattan Development Corp. was created in the aftermath of September 11, 2001 by New York Governor Pataki and former New York City Mayor, Rudolph Giuliani. The LMDC is a joint state-city corporation helping to plan the revitalization of Lower Manhattan.

Roman Fountains also will be building a second fabrication and assembly facility at the Alameda Business Park in Albuqueque. The 6,000-square-foot building will be the final testing point for self-contained fountain system pump and filter control stations used to operate large commercial architectural fountains and water displays, according to another company news release.

Roman Fountains says it has experienced a 45 percent increase in sales in 2005.

http://albuquerque.bizjournals.com/albuque...12.html?jst=b_ln_hl

Edited by author 11-16-2005 02:13 PM
Regarding the Reason article below ( /m1709 ):

"First, Daniel Libeskind must go. He is the architect in charge of the site plan which is problematic enough, but he also tried to push through his half-baked notion of a building that somehow mirrored the pose of the Statue of Liberty holding her torch aloft. And he was going to decorate it with wind turbines that would no doubt break down and look pathetic."

I believe that it was David child's choice of Civil Engineer that brought on the wind turbines.

David Childs, as Silverstein's architect, had so much clout
that Libeskind had to sign off (likely too, contractually).

However, there were many other things that were troublesome.
Why is it that these things were solved in my World Trade Center designs but the designs were deliberately set aside
(along with over 4000 other designs) by setting aside legal obligations?

Ground Zero Cooling Plant Shrinks From XL to S
 
By DAVID W. DUNLAP

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey intends to drastically shrink its plans for an underground chiller plant at the World Trade Center site, cutting off the new commercial office towers from the central air-conditioning and water cooling system.

The redesign, which is to be voted on tomorrow by the authority board, will make the chiller plant more environmentally acceptable by reducing the amount of Hudson River water - and fish eggs and larvae - drawn into its pipes.

It will still provide cooling to public buildings like the memorial, the memorial museum and the PATH terminal. It will probably hasten overall construction and reduce the likelihood of lawsuits. It may open subterranean space for other uses.

And by dividing responsibility for the utility, the new plan heads off what could have been a battle between the authority and Silverstein Properties, the commercial leaseholder on the site, over who would pay what for a central system.

"It's illustrative of our commitment," said Anthony R. Coscia, the Port Authority chairman, "to go ahead and build the chiller facility because we were not comfortable that we would reach agreement with Silverstein Properties in enough time."

The redesigned plant may cost half what the larger plant would have, estimated by the authority at $194 million.

The new arrangement will increase the time, complexity and cost - perhaps by tens of millions of dollars - of the Freedom Tower and four other office buildings planned at the trade center by Larry A. Silverstein, the president and chief executive of Silverstein Properties, who already faces questions about his future role at the site.

Without the ability to hook up to a central system, Silverstein Properties must build its own rooftop cooling towers, which will use drinkable city water. The cooling tower atop the Freedom Tower, however, will be so integrated that it is "invisible from the street," said Janno Lieber, the project director for Silverstein Properties.

State officials said they regarded the smaller chiller plant, and the splitting up of the cooling systems, as a logistical and environmental victory.

"It ensures that the project will go forward and that the Freedom Tower and the memorial will be built in accordance with the governor's time frame," said John P. Cahill, who oversees downtown redevelopment as Gov. George E. Pataki's chief of staff. "And it's important for the continuing recovery of the Hudson River."

Mr. Lieber credited Mr. Cahill's intervention with resolving a difficult issue.

"The governor's office and all the different public agencies believed that the only way to avoid a major controversy and potential delay was for Silverstein to switch to building-by-building cooling towers rather than using a central chiller plant," he said.

"We agreed to this approach in order to maintain the schedule," Mr. Lieber said, "and the government agreed to help us address the significant costs and environmental impact of this switch." Some savings may come from increasing the buildings' energy efficiency.

Mr. Coscia, the authority chairman, said that financial issues remained unresolved and that the authority expected Silverstein Properties "to adjust their economic contribution" since they were being relieved of a legal obligation under the 2001 lease to provide chilled water for the whole trade center site.

On a smaller scale, the new plant will echo the original, which sat under the twin towers and drew as much as 90 million gallons of river water daily through its refrigeration system, supplying air-conditioning and chilled water to the complex above. It was designed before the passage of the Clean Water Act in 1972.

"They have been trying until now to replicate the antiquated and destructive technology of decades ago," said Reed W. Super, a lawyer at the Environmental Law Clinic of Columbia Law School who represents Riverkeeper, an organization that describes its mission as safeguarding the Hudson's ecological integrity. Riverkeeper was prepared to battle the larger plant, as was the Natural Resources Defense Council.

"The proponents of the trade center have touted this redevelopment as the model of environmental excellence," Mr. Super said. "With regard to the chiller plant, it has not met the lofty rhetoric. The only way it could is with a drastic reduction in the amount of Hudson River water it intends to use."

The new plant would reduce river water intake to approximately 15 million gallons daily. That would reduce by 82 percent the number of organisms "entrained" by the giant intake pipes - that is, sucked in, run through the system and then discharged, state officials said yesterday.

"The implications of that are very positive for the Hudson River and the aquatic organisms that live in the Hudson River," said Charles G. Fox, the deputy secretary for energy and the environment in the governor's office.

As originally planned, the central plant was to furnish up to 40,000 tons of total cooling capacity. (For comparison's sake, a residential room air-conditioner may have a capacity of less than one ton. A modest-size house would require three or more tons.)

The revised proposal before the authority's board calls for the design and engineering of a plant with a 12,500-ton capacity.

It had been clear for some time that the State Department of Environmental Conservation was not inclined to grant a permit to the larger chiller plant.

"A yearly entrainment of approximately 53 million fish, eggs and larvae is a significant adverse impact to the Hudson River fishery," said John Ferguson, the project manager for the environmental agency, in an April 21 letter to the Port Authority.

Mr. Ferguson said that was a 24 percent reduction from the time the original plant was operating, before Sept. 11, 2001. And he told the authority his agency would seek a reduction "at the upper end" of 60 to 90 percent.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/16/nyregion/16rebuild.html