The Sept. 11 Memorial Monument behind City Hall will help ensure that people don't forget the tragic attacks on the United States on that fateful day in 2001.
 

After three years of planning a city monument, the final piece was unveiled Sunday before a throng of residents, city leaders and state officials.
 
"The terrorists hit the Pentagon and the World Trade Center," said Attorney General Richard Blumenthal. "But they missed America."

Like others who spoke during an hour-long dedication ceremony inside City Hall, Blumenthal emphasized the importance of the monument toward preserving certain facts.

"We have learned lessons that this monument will help us remember," Blumenthal said. "Freedom is never free. We can wish for peace, but we must be prepared for war."

During the three years it took to find a perfect design and location for the city's Sept. 11 monument, a number of concerns have flared here.

One was that a monument might inadvertently pay tribute to the terrorists who launched the attacks on the United State four years ago.

But speeches on Sunday stated clearly that heroism rather than terrorism is the message carried by this new city monument.

The Rev. Andrew Osmun from St. Peter's Church commented during the ceremony that he worked eight months at the World Trade Center, one day a week, "standing with representatives of all the services as they dug and searched and sought" for victims' remains.

He and others spoke of the everyday heroes who surfaced to help put America back together after the attacks.

They also spoke of the heroes who surfaced that day, from the first responders who arrived and even died saving others, to the passengers on Flight 93 who attacked the terrorists who had commandeered their plane, to the victims who died because they refused to leave others behind in the World Trade Center.

Many of the day's speakers paid tribute to Seth Morris, Michael Miller and Avnish Patel, three men with roots in Milford, who perished in the attacks in New York City.

"To remember is to honor, and to honor is to renew," said Speaker of the House James Amann.

State Sen. Gayle Slossberg pointed out that the standing-room only crowd at City Hall emphasized the fact that "the spirit of America is alive and well in Milford."

That spirit, as many pointed out, was epitomized throughout the monument-building process by James Denno, the architect who won a contest to design the monument and then revamped the plans six times to meet demands.

In designing and redesigning it, Denno said he kept thinking about how to properly memorialize more than 3,000 people who died in the Sept. 11 attacks.

He said he hopes the monument reminds people to be thankful, to be diligent and to be patriotic.

Wind roared through the outdoor sound system Sunday as people moved from City Hall outside to gather around the tarp-covered monument, awaiting its unveiling.

Relatives of the three local men lost in the attacks sat on folding chairs before the monument as Joseph DellaMonica Jr., chairman of the Sept. 11 Memorial Commission, offered some final thoughts.

He commented on the obstacles the commission faced in seeing the monument built.

He recalled that after one meeting, he spoke to James Miller, who is Michael Miller's father.

"He said, 'I don't want anything that's not going to last forever,'" DellaMonica said. "He had a look of love and loss that can only be described as inspirational."

DellaMonica credited Miller with giving him the drive to help push the project forward despite opposition and obstacles.

"So, Mr. Miller," DellaMonica said as Miller sat before the monument, his head bowed. "This is fully completed because there was not going to be any quitting here."

http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?BRD=134...87329&PAG=461&rfi=9

Bloomberg, Pataki make appointments to LMDC board, but mayor calls it `just another vehicle'

NEW YORK -- Mayor Michael Bloomberg on Wednesday appointed six new members to the board that oversees the development of the World Trade Center site, even as he told reporters the agency is "just another vehicle" that has little power.

...
 
 Gov. George E. Pataki also filled two of his three vacancies on the board Wednesday. James Kallstrom, a Pataki adviser who is developing a security plan for the trade center site, was appointed along with Charles Gargano, chairman of the Empire State Development Corp., which is the parent corporation of the LMDC.

Pataki and then-Mayor Rudolph Giuliani created the LMDC to oversee rebuilding shortly after the 2001 trade center attack. The governor and mayor each make eight appointments to the board of directors. The agency was given more than $2.7 billion in federal community development grants to distribute and has about $400 million left to allocate.

Hours before Bloomberg announced his appointments, he said he "never was sure that the LMDC should have been created to begin with because it seemed to me that the state and the city could have worked together without it."

"It's just another vehicle," he said, adding that the "real decisions" are made by the state, the Legislature, the city and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which owns the site.

During his first term, Bloomberg played more of a passive role in the redevelopment as Pataki took charge. The mayor is now hinting that his second term will be different, suggesting recently that the progress is too slow and aspects of the plan need to be reconsidered.

"The mayor's administration's interests may very well differ from others, and we're going to be very vocal in trying to make sure that our interests are taken into account," Bloomberg said Wednesday.

Doctoroff, who serves as deputy mayor for economic development, has already been sitting in on LMDC board meetings as the mayor's liaison.

The mayor's new appointees fill slots left open after others resigned for various reasons.

One longtime member, Pataki appointee Roland Betts, resigned last month. He was upset about Pataki's decision to remove the proposed International Freedom Center from the master plan.

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

Dear Friends and Colleagues:

 We all experienced 9/11. It was one of the worst moments in our history that produced some of the greatest acts of courage and kindness. Next year marks the fifth anniversary of the September 11th attacks, but we need your support today.

The World Trade Center Memorial Foundation wants the United States Post Office (USPS) to honor the thousands of innocent men, women and children who perished in the horrific attacks of February 6, 1993 and September 11, 2001 by issuing a stamp commemorating the WTC Memorial scheduled to open in 2009.

Sign the Petition Here

Please click on the link where you’ll be able to sign our petition to the Postmaster General and vote on one of five proposeddesigns. Next year, we will take both the petition and most popular design and present them to the USPS for their review.

The World Trade Center Memorial Foundation was created in the aftermath of 9/11 to build, own and operate the Memorial and Memorial Museum at Ground Zero. Signing our petition and casting your vote will help honor those who sacrificed so much.

Sign the Petition Here

Best wishes,
Gretchen

Gretchen Dykstra
President & CEO
World Trade Center Memorial Foundation

Mayor names six new LMDC board members

Mayor Michael Bloomberg today announced the City's six new appointments to the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation Board.

Deputy Mayor for Economic Development & Rebuilding Daniel Doctoroff, Deputy Mayor for Operations Marc Shaw, Finance Commissioner Martha Stark, City Planning Director Amanda Burden, Association for a Better New York (ABNY) Chairman William Rudin and Verizon Communications Vice Chairman and President Lawrence Babbio will join the Mayor’s other two appointees -- Trinity Real Estate President Carl Weisbrod, who was formerly Alliance for Downtown New York President, and Greenberg Traurig attorney Robert Harding.

"Every initiative that I outlined in our vision for revitalizing Lower Manhattan is being implemented as shown by the commercial vitality, new parks, active construction projects and growing residential community that have given the area new life," said Mayor Bloomberg in a statement. "Lower Manhattan, both on and off of the World Trade Center site, is and will continue to be a top priority of mine. To that end, I am appointing a mixture of top members of my Administration as well as civic and business leaders to further our efforts.”

The LMDC is the joint State-City corporation formed to oversee the revitalization of Lower Manhattan in the aftermath of the September 11th attacks. The LMDC Board, chaired by John Whitehead, is governed by a 16-member Board of Directors - eight appointed by the Governor, eight appointed by the Mayor.


http://www.newyorkbusiness.com/news.cms?id=12300

$125M for ailing Ground Zero rescuers put in doubt
Congressional budget negotiators balk at preserving assistance, but funding could be salvaged

By TERENCE J. KIVLAN

WASHINGTON -- In a rebuff to the city, congressional budget negotiators have balked at preserving $125 million in unspent aid for injured and sick Ground Zero rescue workers in one of this year's regular spending bills.

But the funding could be salvaged when Congress takes up a supplemental spending measure later this year to fund repairs on the Gulf Coast in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and to provide for the contingency of an avian flu outbreak.

The $125 million was excluded from the this year's $142 billion spending bill for the Departments of Labor and Health and Human Services during negotiations held this week by a House-Senate conference committee to devise a final bill.

The allocation, part of the $20 billion aid package approved for the city directly following Sept. 11, was slashed from the version of the bill passed by the House in July but was restored in the Senate version last month.

In the conference committee, House Republican negotiators refused to accede to their Senate counterparts on the matter. The House conference members said they could not accept the extra funding contained in the Senate bill because it called for $3 billion more in spending than the House version.

But both House and Senate conferees agreed to push for the inclusion of the $125 million in the Katrina supplemental spending measure, according to committee members' aides. The Katrina budget measure is expected to clear Congress sometime in December.

Under pressure from the city congressional delegation, led in this case by Rep. Vito Fossella (R-Staten Island/Brooklyn), House budget leaders had agreed to work to restore the $125 million after it was eliminated from the House version of the bill.

Fossella said yesterday he was "very disappointed -- at a minimum" at the exclusion of the $125 million because this particular bill was the "ideal vehicle" for restoring the funds.

"I think Congress has to fulfill its commitment to the people who responded [to the World Trade Center] and probably still need our help," said the congressman.

Still, he said, the "silver lining is that ... the battle was not over and we may have another bite of the apple later this year" in the Katrina legislation.

Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-Manhattan) also vowed to continue the fight for the funding. "It's the absolute least our 9/11 heroes deserve," she said.

The city's all-out lobbying drive for restoration of the money culminated on Friday, when Fire Commissioner Nicholas Scoppetta and Fire Chief of Department Peter Hayden traveled here to make an appeal.

Hayden said the incidence of respiratory problems among city firefighters has increased fivefold since 9/11, and 450 of those stricken with severe diseases like asthma have been forced to retire.

"The people [at Ground Zero] that day did the right thing," said Hayden. "We expect the right thing to be done here."

The $125 million was cut from the House bill at the urging of the White House, which argued that the city's failure to spend the money over the past four years proved it was not needed.

But city officials want to hold the money in reserve for first responders who might develop health problems over time.

Terence J. Kivlan is Washington correspondent for the Advance. He may be reached at terence.kivlan@newhouse.com.

 http://www.silive.com/news/advance/index.s...40874370.xml&coll=1

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

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?

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

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

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

 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

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