Contractor Sought for Part 1 of Ground Zero Memorial
 
By DAVID W. DUNLAP

Over a stark threshold of sheared-off columns that once supported the north tower of the World Trade Center, visitors at the bedrock level of the 9/11 memorial will face a narrow corridor leading to a space bathed in daylight, beckoning them to enter.
 
The First Footprint That corridor will lead them into a broad room, almost a quarter-acre in extent, with a 20-foot-square symbolic mortuary vessel at its center and a ceiling with an opening to the sky. This will be called the contemplation room. And there will be this to contemplate:

Behind the 85-foot-long wall on the opposite side of the room - out of sight but more palpable than anything that can be taken in by the eye - will lie thousands of unidentified body parts of those who died at ground zero on Sept. 11, 2001.

Such a precise picture of the memorial can be pieced together from detailed architectural plans that are to be released in a bid package from the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation and the World Trade Center Memorial Foundation. They are to announce today that they are seeking a contractor to pour the concrete footings for the memorial, a job that is to cost up to $12 million.

"This is the first bid package for the actual construction of the memorial," Gov. George E. Pataki said yesterday. "It's a critical milestone, and it means we are on time for the beginning of construction in March." He said the memorial would be finished by Sept. 11, 2009.

Because contractors need detailed plans, the bid package offers new glimpses into the workings of the memorial and how it will be experienced.

"We now move from paper to reality," said Anne Papageorge, the corporation's senior vice president for memorial and cultural development. "Seeing the physical reality begin is very important. And very moving."

The plans give exact dimensions to elements that until now have been discussed only in general terms. They may reassure those who wondered whether the memorial would be constructed at all. They may trouble those who are already critical.

For instance, the more preservation-minded relatives of 9/11 victims object strongly to the idea of building any new structures within the footprint areas defined by the stub-end remnants of the original perimeter columns. They argue that this will make it impossible for future visitors to grasp the magnitude of the tower outlines.

"By using that space and breaking them up, essentially they're obliterating them," said Anthony Gardner, executive director of the World Trade Center United Family Group. Left uninterrupted, he added, "The remains of the footprints could speak to people thousands of years from now."

Ms. Papageorge said that as much mechanical space as possible had been removed from the footprint areas to give the public more access to the column remnants.

The new plans give the first definite idea of the size and functions of the spaces within the north tower footprint, which is set aside mostly for memorial use. (Design of the museum space within the south tower footprint is not as advanced.)

Most visitors will approach the 100-by-100-foot contemplation room along an 8-foot-wide corridor leading from an exhibition space featuring an exposed portion of the slurry wall around the trade center's original foundation.

Victims' relatives, however, will be able to descend to bedrock level in a private elevator, if they choose to do so. They will find two rooms that are closed to the public: a 2,400-square-foot family room and a 360-square-foot viewing room looking into the storage chamber for unidentified remains.

The storage chamber, 53 feet long and 34 feet wide, will have a controlled climate. It is not meant to be visited. However, the New York City chief medical examiner's office will be able to retrieve remains for further forensic examination as DNA-based identification techniques improve, Ms. Papageorge said.

Of the 19,974 body parts recovered from the trade center site, 10,864 have been identified, representing 1,594 of the 2,749 people who died. Unidentified and unclaimed remains are now stored in refrigerated units outside the medical examiner's office at First Avenue and East 30th Street.

Ms. Papageorge said that the symbolic vessel in the contemplation room would not be large enough to hold all the unidentified remains and that it would be difficult to design with adequate climate control and necessary access to the remains within.

But Mr. Gardner said it was unacceptable to leave that vessel empty while housing the remains - which may include those of his brother Harvey Joseph Gardner III - elsewhere in the memorial. "I finally thought I'd have a tomb," he said, "knowing that somewhere within that tomb, my brother's remains would be."

Around the contemplation room will be two L-shaped exhibition galleries, each more than 70 feet long; tanks and pumps for the memorial fountains above; and electrical switch and substation rooms.

Sixty-eight of 84 column remnants are to be preserved around the north tower footprint, with a notch for the permanent PATH station. Only 35 remnants will be kept around the south tower footprint, where PATH occupies a much larger swath.

A notice of the bid package is to be published today in The New York State Contract Reporter newsletter. Drawings and specifications will be posted on Monday on the development corporation's Web site, www.renewnyc.com.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/03/nyregion/03rebuild.html

2005 In Review: The Year In The Rebuilding Of The World Trade Center Site

Four years later, the future of the World Trade Center site is still unclear. As NY1's Rebecca Spitz explains in the following "2005 In Review" report, it's been a year filled with lots of talk, but little action.

With a site this big still nearly empty, and plenty of ideas swirling about how best to use it, you'd think more would be going on at the World Trade Center site. But in 2005 that wasn't the case.

Construction stalls for most of the year. Major players like Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Governor George Pataki square off, sometimes with each other, and with leaseholder Larry Silverstein almost all of the time.

Bloomberg wants construction to start soon on the eastern part of the site, not only for office buildings but apartments and a hotel. Pataki favors the plan for 10 million square feet of office space only.

But while the politicians disagree about the specifics, both have reservations about allowing Silverstein to have complete control.

"Who does the actual development is less important to us. It is ensuring that it gets done and ensuring that all of these projects get done simultaneously rather than consecutively," said the mayor.

Silverstein, who pays $10 million a month to the Port Authority, says he doesn't believe the mayor and governor are trying to force him out. He says there's already enough residential development at the site, and he'd like to stick with the plan as it was originally laid out.

“A huge amount of residential is going forward in downtown. As we speak there’s about 12.7 million square feet of office space that has been converted to residential, thousands of apartments created, [and] another 5,000 units under construction in new buildings," said Silverstein.

While Silverstein is almost finished building 7 World Trade Center, now he just needs some tenants to fill it.

This, while politicians and other developers continue to question Silverstein's ability to move quickly on his ambitious rebuilding plan for five towers on the site.

In mid-December, Governor Pataki says he'll allocate the state's half of the $3.5 billion in Liberty Bonds to Silverstein. For its part, the city has postponed a vote on its share of the project.

Officials re-lay the cornerstone for the Freedom Tower in mid-November after plans for the building are changed. Police Commissioner Ray Kelly suggested the original design was vulnerable to truck bombs, so planners move the building a safer 90 feet from the West Side Highway, and include more metal sheeting at the base. Construction is slated to begin in early 2006.

Security concerns almost ruin plans for the new Goldman Sachs headquarters on West Street. Bankers briefly cancel the project because of concerns over a planned tunnel under the West Side Highway that was supposed to begin right outside the building.

But the tunnel idea was scrapped. That, along with hundreds of millions of dollars in tax breaks, brings the project back to life. Goldman Sachs will occupy the entire building, but the governor is also hoping to lure other companies to the area.

“We are confirming today the fact that Lower Manhattan is the financial capital of the world," said Pataki.

Another big move back downtown - Verizon. The phone company is in the process of relocating 1,500 employees to its repaired West Street station.

Meanwhile, plans are underway to knock down the Deutsche Bank building. The 40-story landmark, badly damaged and contaminated in the attacks, will be detoxified and disassembled in a yearlong project to clear the site for a new tower and a half-acre park south of Liberty Street.

Protest swirled around the International Freedom Center, which angers families with its plans to feature exhibits having nothing to do with the terror attacks. Families fear it would dishonor their loved ones.

“We're against the International Freedom Center being on hallowed ground because we don't want politics or extraneous matters other than 9/11 to be here on Ground Zero," said one 9/11 family member.

In response, the International Freedom Center submits another longer report to the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, promising its exhibits will link both attacks on the World Trade Center to humanity's greatest idea: freedom.

Finally, bidding opens for construction work on the World Trade Center memorial and museum. So far the LMDC has allocated $200 million toward design and construction. It estimates the project will cost $490 million.

Construction is scheduled to start in March, with a tentative opening date in 2009.

- Rebecca Spitz

http://www.ny1.com/ny1/content/index.jsp?stid=203&aid=55838

Hurdles facing Sept. 11 memorial must be overcome

Problem project

Nation is obliged to build 9/11 memorial, but leadership is lacking

IMMEDIATELY AFTER the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, a national unity formed until then unseen by the two generations that came of age after Pearl Harbor. But as unified as Americans were four years ago, we are equally torn now on how to create a memorial at the World Trade Center site where thousands died.
When thinking about the privately funded project, most Americans care about just one thing: that it well serves its purpose. But three challenging obstacles exist to getting the memorial done right. They include planning it, raising the funds to erect and operate it, and, finally, building it.

Groundbreaking is set for spring, but only a fifth of the $500 million goal has been raised, and some basic design details are still unresolved.

Why all the trouble? Certain factors make the project different from others like it in recent memory. It is the largest such endeavor ever undertaken. The estimated cost is twice as much as the price tag of the World War II memorial, and dwarfs the $29 million spent on the architectural tribute to the Oklahoma City bombing victims. Also, in addition to members with power, wealth, and egos, the board includes family members of 9/11 victims, adding a complicating emotional dimension. Eleven of the board's 37 members have themselves failed to pledge or made donations to the memorial, suggesting to would-be donors a lack of support within the project's inner circle.

If the enterprise is worth doing, it is worth doing right. Very few Americans would argue that the violent deaths of so many of our countrymen, innocent people going about their business who left devastated families behind, should not be remembered with a permanent memorial. We need to do this.

If the project envisioned is too grand, then scale it back. If not, then it's high time for leadership. Americans have proven after cataclysmic events here and abroad that they're willing to give, and give some more. They are ready to give again in this instance, but they need to know what it is they are supporting.

http://fredericksburg.com/News/FLS/2005/122005/12292005/154807

American Amnesia

Without much fanfare, a Michigan retirement board last week began to put the finishing touches on the sale and likely demolition of a landmark significant to all Americans –– the former workshop of Minoru Yamasaki, architect of the twin towers at the World Trade Center.

In an apparent move to augment its investment returns, this retirement board is selling a cradle of contemporary American innovation and architectural history, for a mere $3.5 to 4 million.

Is this what has become of American society? Where for a quick buck we readily dismiss and forsake birthplaces and institutions, which have contributed so much to modern society?

The American amnesia of architect Yamasaki started in the year after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. Author Helen Zia noted, “[The pundits’] failure to name the architect of the World Trade Center was glaring.”

Yamasaki’s soaring WTC twin towers, over 110 stories and 1,360 feet high, were icons of a robust and peaceful America. Over 2,800 Sept. 11 obituaries from this edifice symbolized this globe, representing many tributaries of nations feeding into the diversity of this country.

In a country where the attacks on the World Trade Center have focused even more sharply the preserving of the American way of life, it is ironic that the birthplace of the World Trade Center is now on the verge of destruction by American greed.

And what of our community? Clearly, the outcry, awareness and outrage have not been up to the standards as those shown in the Vincent Chin case (which happened only a few miles away), and the racist characterizations of Hot 97 or Abercrombie and Fitch.

Yamasaki was the architect of two towers whose destruction have tangible threads to AsianWeek’s ten top stories of 2005, including military service of APAs, the investigation surrounding White House aide Susan Ralston and the passing of Fred Korematsu, whose name has been invoked in civil liberty cases arising out of the war on terrorism.

This stunning development of the sale and possible demolition of such an international landmark should not slip past us, like the terrorists who destroyed the World Trade Center.

http://news.asianweek.com/news/view_articl...his_category_id=172

Germany Faces Dilemma in Combating Asymmetric Terror Threat
Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift: Are armed troops on the streets the way forward?
In the past year, events have forced governments to adapt to an ever-changing threat in the "war on terror." Germany faces tough decisions in its own fight.

The recent scandal surrounding secret prisoner transports by the CIA in Europe has energized the domestic security debate in Germany. One of the main questions raised is what tactics and strategies should, or should not, be allowed in the global war against terrorism.

There is consensus on at least one aspect of the security debate: that the attacks on the World Trade Center towers in New York on Sept. 11, 2001, changed the world.

"Since 9/11 we know we are faced with a terrorism that challenges virtually every facet of the rule of law," Dirk Niebel, secretary general of the free-market liberal FDP party, summed up sentiment in Germany. "It is an asymmetric threat that has realigned the division between internal and external security, and the division between intelligence gathering and police work."

The problem is that the enemy operates in the shadows, often blending into the surroundings. So, to protect its citizens, governments have had to alter their defensive strategies. This raises a number of legal questions about what intelligence services can and cannot do. What limits are there to collecting information and how should that information be used? The debate over these issues is only just beginning.

Involvement in rendition poses human rights questions
Much of it has been triggered by revelations in the recent CIA affair. For Germany, the scandal mainly revolves around the kidnapping of German citizen Khaled el Masri in Macedonia and his subsequent rendition to Afghanistan for interrogation. Europe is aöso investigating the alleged cooperation of states in providing airspace and runways for secret CIA flights.


It has also emerged that German intelligence agents interrogated terror suspects in the United States' controversial Guantanamo prison as well as in Syrian jails that were known for torturing their inmates.

  Khaled el Masri's case is at the heart of Germany's own CIA scandal
German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who was responsible for the intelligence services in the previous government, found himself having to clarify the German position in parliament. "The German government has always made clear that its cooperation with others is based on the rule of law. And that is especially true in the Masri case," Steinmeier said.

Green party domestic policy expert Wolfgang Wieland, however, has criticized the government for "overstepping the red line" and making use of what he called the "fruits of torture."

There is nothing in the new German government's coalition agreement about the status of incarcerated terror suspects. But the ruling coalition of Christian Democrats and the Social Democrats has agreed to expand the Federal Criminal Office's so-called preventative authority to simplify the pursuit and prosecution of terror suspects.

Bundeswehr deployment on home soil a hot topic

But that's not enough for Interior Minister Wolfgang Schäuble, who wants to use the German armed forces for domestic activities.

Schäuble wants troops on the streets for events like the World Cup
"It would be easy to imagine using the army in situations such as the World Cup soccer championships," said Schäuble recently. "If we don't have enough police, then I think, for example, they could temporarily be used to protect buildings."

Schäuble's proposal has divided the coalition. The Social Democrats have called it galling and damaging to the armed forces. Even Defense Minister Franz Joseph Jung has said the army is not some kind of sheriff's deputy.

It will certainly take a lot of haggling for the coalition to reach a consensus, if it ever does. In the meantime, however, the terrorist threat will not be going away anytime soon.

http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,1839554,00.html

Monuments Unrestrained by Laws of Physics or Finance

By KEN JOHNSON

Imagine a major new monument for the United States of America. That was the assignment given by the curator Ralph Rugoff to more than 50 international artists. All their proposals are now on view in a lively, often amusing, sometimes thought-provoking but less than profound exhibition called "Monuments for the U.S.A." at White Columns, the nonprofit gallery in the West Village. It was organized by Mr. Rugoff for the C.C.A. Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, a gallery and study center in San Francisco that he directs.

Forum: Artists and Exhibitions
Notwithstanding the show's title, none of the drawings, collages, sculptural maquettes and video animations offer ideas for monuments that are conventional - much less celebratory - in terms of meaning or form. As Mr. Rugoff observes in his interesting, well-written essay for the exhibition catalog, the traditional monument is by nature conservative and authoritarian, which will tend to incite the contemporary artist to resist.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/30/arts/design/30monu.html

City to get more sculptures
Realistically portraying ordinary folks in bronze a hit

Look for other surprisingly realistic bronze people to start popping up around Carmel.
  
After unveiling the J. Seward Johnson Jr. sculpture "First Ride" earlier this month in Old Town next to the Monon Trail, Carmel officials have ordered two additional works of art.
The city is buying a $77,000 sculpture of a man on a bench, reading a newspaper, and a $75,000 sculpture of a little girl watering daisies.
The initial sculpture of a father pushing his daughter on a bicycle cost $95,000. The artwork is being paid out of the 1 percent of the city's budget dedicated to the arts.
Mayor Jim Brainard is encouraging other developers in Carmel to collect the works of Johnson, who many call "the Norman Rockwell of American sculpture." His life-size bronze works include colorful clothing and realistic details.
"If we have his work in Old Town and City Center, it could become an attraction in and of itself," Brainard said.
Johnson started making the sculptures of people doing ordinary things almost 40 years ago. His work can be seen in major cities including Chicago, London, Los Angeles, New York and Paris.
After the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, his sculpture of a man with a briefcase called "Double Check" near the World Trade Center remained untouched and became a makeshift memorial.
Brainard said Evan Lurie, a former city and Pedcor Development Co. employee who now plans to open a gallery in Old Town, came up with the idea.
Brainard said Johnson's work fits in with the traditional look of Old Town, which was designated as an Arts and Design District this year, with a focus on art galleries, home décor and upscale shops.
"We liked his work because of its realism and how well he's able to capture contemporary American life," Brainard said. "We think his work is very important."
A New Jersey resident, Johnson started his artwork at 38. He's the grandson of the founder of Johnson & Johnson and has been active in promoting the arts. He makes up to seven castings of each sculpture, which can cost up to $150,000 each.
The two new sculptures should be installed early in the spring.
Brainard said that public art is important for economic development and quality of life.
"Public art adds vibrancy and excitement to and helps define a community," he said. "Public art can inspire, humor and pull people together."

http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/arti...300328/1026/ZONES04

WTC BIZ GOT ZERO

 WASHINGTON — Steamers Landing owner Jan Fried, who was turned down for a small-business loan after the 9/11 attacks devastated her restaurant just blocks from Ground Zero, was steaming herself yesterday.
Fried had just read in The Post how businesses across the country that had no connection to the terror attacks — a golf course in Texas, a candy store in Illinois and a tanning salon in Las Vegas, just to name a few — easily secured huge loans under a special post-Sept. 11 federal program that was supposed to be for companies economically harmed by the attacks.

http://www.nypost.com/news/regionalnews/60613.htm

Schumer Questions Silverstein's WTC Redevelopment Plan

Senator Charles Schumer had some harsh words for World Trade Center developer Larry Silverstein on Thursday night’s edition of “The Road to City Hall.”

Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Governor George Pataki have both said their part, and now Schumer is expressing concerns about Silverstein's handling of the rebuilding process.

"I've said publicly that I would continue to allow Larry Silverstein the Liberty Bonds and to build the Freedom Tower, as well as number two and three, but if he can't show that he can rent number seven, quickly, maybe it should be reconsidered," said Schumer.

The senator says he is willing to give Silverstein six months to a year to find tenants for the already complete number seven building.

http://www.ny1.com/ny1/content/index.jsp?stid=203&aid=55973

Compensation for WTC rescue workers
EDITORIAL
 
More than four years after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, Congress has finally agreed to provide money for rescue workers who may have suffered health problems during the cleanup efforts at the World Trade Center.
The funding, 125 million, was originally part of a 20 billion relief package the federal government put together following the attacks, but the money came through and was spent elsewhere.

Last week, Congress restored the funding, which will go to the New York state workers compensation program and organizations that provide care for sick Ground Zero workers.

The money had become part of a political tug of war between the White House and members of Congress from New York. It is a relief to see that the money is going where it should have gone all along. It is only regrettable that it took this much time.

The 125 million - a virtual pittance in the context of the federal budget — is well spent taking care of those who stepped up to the plate in one of our darkest hours.

http://www.eldiariony.com/noticias/detail....ditorial&id=1307461

Scariest building in New York
 
Jitters over demolition of toxic tower near WTC
 
By GREG B. SMITH
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
 
 
Shroud covers tower at 130 Liberty St., which is filled with toxic debris from collapse of twin towers.
 
The 40-story shell at 130 Liberty St. stands as a ghastly testament to the devastation of 9/11; to many residents of downtown Manhattan, it is the scariest building in New York.
The former Deutsche Bank headquarters, located on the edge of Ground Zero, is filled with a toxic brew of asbestos, lead, cadmium, dioxin, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and other poisons deposited after the collapse of the twin towers. And now, the planned demolition of the structure — scheduled to begin later this month — has ignited passionate fears that the neighborhood again will be exposed to a cloud of contaminated debris.

Public hearings on the demolition have been packed. The only problem: The public hasn't been allowed to speak or ask questions.

Furious protesters, including local residents and environmental activists, repeatedly disrupted one recent meeting, shouting down speaker after speaker. Some placed blue tape over their mouths to symbolize being gagged.

"Why are you censoring the victim?" shouted one red-faced man.

"Take your speeches outside!" bellowed Michael Haberman, a spokesman for the Lower Manhattan Development Corp., which oversees post-9/11 rebuilding downtown and now owns 130 Liberty St.

To those who live in its shadow, it is easy to understand why emotions run high when the topic of 130 Liberty St. comes up.

The morning of the terrorist attacks, debris from the collapsing south tower ripped a gash 15 stories down the face of the building. Tons of steel and concrete punched through to the subbasement, causing an underground diesel tank to explode.

Some of the toxic plume created by the tower's collapse settled into 130 Liberty's gaping hole.

Still unsettled by those events, many local residents fear that the scariest building in New York is about to become much scarier.

In the coming weeks, the LMDC is scheduled to begin the job of tearing it down, floor by floor.

Contractors have begun erecting scaffolding all the way to the top. Within the next two weeks, workers are scheduled to begin cleaning the poisonous interior.

With most buildings, that wouldn't be a big deal. But nearby residents fear the deconstruction will be a bit like Pandora deciding to open that little box.

TROUBLING SAMPLES

Since 9/11, consultants repeatedly have found toxic dust inside and outside 130 Liberty. In the last study, in the fall of 2004, six of 10 wipes from the building exterior contained unsafe asbestos levels, including a sample that measured 25 times the acceptable level. That same consultant found lead at unacceptable levels in four of 10 samples.

The biggest fear is that once the building starts coming down, a toxic cloud will waft through the neighborhood.

Tests done by neighbors indicate 130 Liberty asbestos already may have escaped.

In October 2004, an apartment dweller at 125 Cedar St., directly across the street, tested samples of grit wiped from his window sills, tables and floors.

Three of nine samples showed levels far above the threshold the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says requires "aggressive cleanup action," according to documents provided to the Daily News.

One floor sample measured 20 times the EPA's "aggressive cleanup action" level and one window sample was recorded at 25,200 times the federal threshold, the documents state.

For months, tensions have been rising over 130 Liberty's demise.

"We constantly have to be on our guard," Mark Scherzer, a lawyer whose kitchen window looks out at the building, told a News reporter at a recent hearing. "It hasn't been that we've been able to feel comfortable, that we're protected, that we go to sleep comfortably at night."

Esther Rogelson, who lives a block away on Washington St., said, "There's lip service and no real concrete plan for the people in the neighborhood. . . . It's really a danger to the community."

At a recent Community Board 1 meeting, the friction was obvious when Fire Department Acting Borough Commander John Coloe tried to downplay potential dangers. "One-thirty Liberty is not some nuclear device ready to detonate," he said.

The crowd erupted, shouting out a litany of fears, from crane collapses to building collapses to the possibility of an accidental toxic release.

At the same meeting, many who live nearby reiterated their demands that sirens be erected to warn the neighborhood in the event of a collapse or accidental release of toxic dust.

Authorities again rejected the siren request, claiming it would panic tourists and workers and cause locals to evacuate when they should remain in their apartments.

Instead, state documents show, authorities are exploring the idea of notifying the neighborhood through E-mail or text-messaging.

Fears aren't limited to toxic dust. Many residents are afraid the demolition of such a large building in close proximity to residential apartments is, in and of itself, unsafe.

LMDC has tried to calm fears by repeatedly vowing to complete a safe, "transparent" deconstruction of 130 Liberty by keeping the public informed of its plans at all times.

But behind the scenes, concern about safety is topic No. 1.

Federal regulators recently decided to decline a so-called partnership with contractor Bovis Lend Lease that would have allowed the company to self-police much of its work.

In October, Bovis approached the U.S. Occupational Safety & Health Administration, hoping to enter into such an agreement regarding job safety.

OSHA partnerships can mean less stringent enforcement and monitoring of job safety rules. Such agreements existed during the Ground Zero cleanup.

OSHA never announced its decision to reject the offer, but according to minutes of an Oct. 19 LMDC deconstruction meeting, Bovis "reported OSHA refusal to enter into partnership agreement," and that the agency had requested security clearance for 10 inspectors to "regularly visit the site."

Bovis referred questions to the LMDC, where spokesman John Gallagher noted that OSHA had signed off on the final deconstruction plans, which were approved in September. He declined to discuss OSHA's decision not to enter into a partnership on the project.

OSHA New York Director Richard Mendelson said the agency based its decision on concerns about safe disposal of dangerous dust and the tricky nature of the demolition job.

"At this point, there's a lot of community concerns," he said. "It's a very high-profile job, one of the tallest buildings to be manually deconstructed in recent memory. There's concerns about some degree of contamination from [the] World Trade [Center]. I'm not going to argue about what that level is, but there's certainly some concerns about the dust during deconstruction."

On Friday, a worker fell from the scaffolding and was taken to the hospital. "The incident did not result in any impact on the surrounding community," said the LMDC.

The fall followed a Nov. 28 community complaint to OSHA about tradesmen "working near open-sided floors without any form of fall protection." OSHA investigated and determined that contractors had adequate safety measures in place.

MANY PLANS

Compounding fears is LMDC's history of needing to revise its deconstruction plans because of safety concerns.

The first contractor LMDC hired, Gilbane Construction, had never demolished a building as contaminated as 130 Liberty. It presented a plan using open outrigger nets that the LMDC came to believe would have allowed debris to fly off the roof to the street below.

Gilbane's plan to clean up the toxic mess inside the building also forgot to include cleaning up dust behind walls and under floors — an omission that inspired the EPA to reject the entire plan. As a result, Gilbane was replaced by Bovis. Bovis presented a plan with enclosed netting that would have caught debris. But it also proposed a demolition method that involved dropping one entire floor onto the floor below — a method ultimately deemed unsafe.

Another aspect of the Bovis plan also rejected: using a huge crane at the top to swing large containers with debris down to the ground, according to documents and people familiar with the plan.

The current plan involves breaking up portions of each floor, loading them into smaller containers and bringing them to the ground via elevatorlike hoists.

The contractor would create negative air pressure on the floor it is cleaning to keep dust inside the building, while air monitors positioned around the neighborhood would check for leaks.

The complexity of the demolition has driven up costs from the original projection of $135 million ($90 million to buy the building and $45 million to take it down). As of last week, $153 million had been spent. The LMDC now projects costs will total $164 million.

Of that amount, the state has spent $18 million to monitor neighborhood air for toxic leaks and to maintain the building, documents show. The rising costs also can be blamed on the deconstruction delays.

The LMDC originally predicted the building would be gone by "late 2005, early 2006." Last week, the agency offered a new timetable — spring 2007.


WARNING: CONTENTS CAN CAUSE DISEASES & DEATH



Lead: Heavy, low-melting, bluish-gray metal; exposure can adversely affect nervous system, cause anemia and weakness in fingers, wrists, ankles; at high exposure, can severely damage brain and kidneys, and ultimately cause death.

Dioxin: The worst form of this compound is believed to be human carcinogen; exposure can cause acne-like lesions, skin rashes, excessive body hair, liver damage and subtle changes in hormonal levels.

Cadmium: Usually found as mineral combined with other elements such as oxygen (cadmium oxide) or chlorine (cadmium chloride); breathing high levels severely damages lungs and can cause death.

PAHs: Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons are a group of 100-plus chemicals formed during incomplete burning of coal, oil and gas, or other organic substances; according to the government, some PAHs "may reasonably be expected to be carcinogens"; some who've breathed or touched PAH mixtures and other chemicals for long periods have developed cancer.

Asbestos: Minerals with separable, long and thin fibers; long suspected as health threat to humans because fibers can be inhaled and are difficult to remove from lungs.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/local/story/379241p-322095c.html

Ecological Impact of 9/11
Lingering Threats: Contamination May Still Lurk Near Ground Zero
  
In the eyes of many people who live and work near the Manhattan site of the September 11 terrorist attacks, the government’s response to their demands for more testing and decontamination have been woefully inadequate.

Part One of this series: Ground Zero: The Most Dangerous Workplace was published on January 24, 2005.

Part Two of this series: Caught in the Smoke: Employees, Residents Cope With 9/11 Fallout was published on January 31, 2005.

Feb 7, 2005 - Scientific studies on the dust from the World Trade Center disaster and the people exposed to it suggest that not only the health effects, but also the contamination source itself may persist long after the initial impact. Activists are now calling on the federal government to implement plans to clean up leftover contamination and to fund research on and treatment for future health issues related to the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

Advocates like Suzanne Mattei, New York executive of the environmental group Sierra Club, complain that the three-year effort to force the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to address these needs has yielded only half-baked, non-committal plans. She explained to The NewStandard that community members are understandably frustrated with "an agency that keeps proposing things that ordinary people in the community can immediately look at and shoot holes through."

Dangers in Settled Dust
The dust from Ground Zero was an extraordinary mix of chemicals -- not the type of dirt people can sweep away and forget about.

A study led by Dr. Paul Lioy of the Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences Institute published in Environmental Health Perspectives, reported that if not totally eliminated from surfaces, toxic dust could be re-suspended in the air long after September 11, and "if indoor locations are not cleaned properly, there is a potential for long-term inhalation contact or ingestion contact."

According to a 2002 study by NYU’s Department of Environmental Medicine, fine particulate matter "dominated the WTC impacts, as the cleanup operations proceeded, ‘kicking up’ WTC dust at the same time." The EPA’s own Office of Research and Development issued a report one year after the collapse stating that "Individuals visiting, residing, or working in buildings not adequately cleaned… could have been subjected to repeated, long-duration exposure to many of the components from the original WTC collapse," especially pulverized glass and metals.

These dangers are not new discoveries. Both the EPA and independent environmental scientists began collecting and analyzing air and dust samples within days of the attacks and continued over the next several months. By September 28, the EPA established a WTC Multi-Agency Database to manage environmental monitoring data from both city and federal agencies.

Nevertheless, the EPA had taken only six test results from WTC dust when then-chair Christine Todd Whitman announced on September 13, "EPA is greatly relieved to have learned that there appears to be no significant levels of asbestos dust in the air in New York City." And even as monitoring data showing elevated contamination became available, the EPA’s safety messages remained consistent, countering media reports and growing public awareness of health problems associated with the downtown air quality.

Community members have expressed concern not only over the conditions inside these buildings, but health threats to the surrounding neighborhood.
Within a week of the collapse, with fumes still wafting through the air, the EPA and the New York City Department of Health (DOH) was encouraging people to reoccupy apartments and offices in local buildings. DOH guidelines for residents and workers preparing to reenter buildings stated that ordinary household cleaning with a wet cloth would be sufficient to get rid of WTC dust. DOH officials also recommended vacuuming using a "high efficiency particulate air filter" to minimize dust, even though earlier EPA studies determined that this technique is insufficient for removing asbestos from indoor environments.

As late as May 2002, with the Ground Zero clean-up drawing to a close, the EPA was publicly claiming that asbestos test results either did not detect asbestos or "found levels well below the standard that EPA is applying."

But critics, both independent of and within the agency, charge that the EPA ignored alarming test results and, in some cases, selectively applied testing criteria to mask the dangers of contamination.

Cate Jenkins, a research chemist with the EPA’s Hazardous Waste Identification Division, criticized her Agency’s use of a relatively high industrial benchmark for determining "asbestos containing material."

Noting that this benchmark is not a health standard, Jenkins pointed to EPA research showing that indoor materials containing as little as 0.1 percent asbestos could pose a health risk. Similarly, the EPA used an airborne asbestos standard of 70 structures per square millimeter, which in fact allows for a cancer risk several thousand times higher than the Agency’s own designated acceptable risk level.

A 2003 evaluation by the EPA Inspector General’s office pointed out that even these flawed benchmarks were exceeded in the Agency’s tests on scattered WTC dust. The EPA’s released data shows that in the week following the collapse, 25 percent of the samples exceeded the one-percent asbestos level, and this figure soared to 35 percent over the next month.

Jenkins’s report also asserted that the Agency chose a "cheap, antiquated method" of asbestos testing over the more sophisticated electron microscope technique, which it used on its own Lower Manhattan headquarters after September 11.

In the days following the attacks, the Ground Zero Elected Officials Task Force, a committee of state and city leaders, independently tested two local apartments for asbestos using the electron microscope method and discovered levels up to 47 and 64 times higher than the typical level for urban buildings, according to a report on the environmental aftermath of 9/11 published by the Sierra Club.

Critics of the government response argue that regardless of whether the worst is behind New York or yet to come, the EPA must respond to community demands.
The New York Environmental Law & Justice Project’s (NYELJP) independent tests in the area also indicated asbestos concentrations far exceeding the "safe" levels of under one percent that the EPA was publicizing.

Congressman Jerrold Nadler (D-New York) issued public statements in March 2002 that denounced the EPA’s "reckless and illegal response" to the disaster. He accused the agency of "downplaying its own findings, and ignoring other contradictory findings." Crucial EPA air sampling data, he noted, was not even publicly available until the NYELJP filed a Freedom of Information Law request to obtain it.

Cleaning Up the Mess
Environmental activists, community health advocates and labor groups have struggled to raise public awareness of the indoor contamination issue, urging the EPA to take responsibility for past misconduct and also to establish a comprehensive, federally funded clean-up program for Ground Zero and all exposed surrounding areas.

In the fall of 2002, the EPA did undertake an indoor professional clean-up program, open to residents on a volunteer basis. However, the program ended up cleaning only 4,100 out of the estimated 20,000 to 30,000 residences in the designated clean-up area. No public program was available for cleaning non-residential buildings or businesses.

This December, the New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health urged the EPA to conduct a thorough asbestos abatement procedure throughout the several-mile radius around Ground Zero.

Advocates point to the Deutsche Bank building on Liberty Street, next to Ground Zero, as just one example of the environmental hazards lingering in structures that absorbed toxins emitted in the disaster. Independent tests on the location -- fifteen stories of which were damaged by the collapse of the towers -- and on a neighboring Deutsche Bank building revealed inhalable asbestos particle concentrations 45 and 35 times higher than average concentrations in outdoor air.

The contamination included longer asbestos fibers that pose the additional danger of causing lung tissues to rupture. Scientists of the specially commissioned Deutsche Bank Health Group reported in their 2004 health-risk assessment of the Liberty Street building that airborne and dust concentrations of lead, mercury, and other damaging substances "exceeded their respective health-based benchmarks by anywhere from 1.2 to 634 times."

Community members have expressed concern not only over the conditions inside these buildings, but health threats to the surrounding neighborhood as the building owners move forward with plans for demolition as part of the World Trade Center area’s redevelopment.

Responding to public concerns, US Senator Hillary Clinton (D-New York) and Representative Jerrold Nadler (D-Manhattan) in turn pressured the EPA, which has promised to devise a new clean-up plan in conjunction with the WTC Expert Review Panel, an appointed advisory group of scientists and occupational health specialists.*

Community representatives have issued several demands before the panel, including that "where test results warrant, EPA will decontaminate not only the tested buildings but the neighborhoods affected by 9/11 contaminants," that the range of the testing and clean-up be expanded to include Brooklyn and other parts of Manhattan, and that the EPA support public health monitoring and treatment programs related to contamination.

The planning process for full-scale decontamination, stymied by political tensions between the agency and community members, has lumbered on for nearly a year, and some are losing hope that the EPA, given its track record, will finally meet its purported goals.

Michael Brown, an EPA associate assistant administrator for research and development, said the agency intends to carry out the plan it is currently drafting as soon as possible. "We wouldn’t have a sampling plan if we didn’t intend to implement it," he told TNS.

Asked about the timetable of the process, Mary Mears, the EPA’s regional spokesperson, said that the EPA would "definitely" conduct at least one round of environmental tests in Lower Manhattan, "but when that starts is really going to depend on… how long it takes us to finalize the plan." She added, "There’s no date certain."

However, Hugh Kaufman, a former chief investigator for the EPA Ombudsman’s office, which was dissolved after it publicly criticized the Agency’s handling of the disaster, called the panel "a political set-up to buy time, because they [EPA] don’t want to do what they’re required to do, which is clean up New York."

The panel itself is limited to an advisory role, Kaufman noted, so the EPA ultimately has the last word on how the clean-up will be implemented, if at all. When asked if he foresaw the EPA moving forward with the clean-up plan in the near future, he replied, "With this administration? Don’t hold your breath."

Suzanne Mattei of the Sierra Club said local advocates were watching the EPA carefully to ensure the Agency’s accountability. "We need to hear a real commitment from EPA that they’re going to follow through on this and this isn’t just window dressing," she said. Although she is hopeful that a clean-up plan will eventually materialize, Mattei cautioned: "The question in my mind is, how much will they listen to the community on the design of that program? Because it’s very easy to put forth a plan to find nothing."

A Hazardous Precedent
With the smoke all but cleared from Ground Zero, both researchers in the scientific community and activists have acknowledged that the chaos wrought by the collapse of the World Trade Center created unimaginable obstacles to public health and security, making a coordinated response extremely difficult.

Reflecting on the disaster response effort in a 2003 assessment by the National Environmental Health Association, Dr. Lioy conceded, "No agency was prepared to deal with devastation of this magnitude in a major urban area." The issue that lingers, however, is whether the government has done all it can to fulfill its responsibility to people affected by the disaster.

Critics of the government response argue that regardless of whether the worst is behind New York or yet to come, the EPA must at any rate respond to community demands both to protect the public and to regain its trust.

"There’s no question that they didn’t do enough originally," said David Yassky, a member of the New York City Council representing Brooklyn, who has demanded that the EPA’s future clean-up effort include his borough. Brooklyn has so far been excluded from decontamination measures, although the smoke plume from the towers passed over head for days. "What’s done is done in terms of how they acted in the immediate aftermath of September 11," he said. "But now they should do what’s required, what’s merited."

In March 2004, workers and residents brought a lawsuit against the EPA for allegedly misinforming the public and failing to address public health hazards. Citing the Presidential Decision Directive 62 of 1998, which assigns the EPA the burden of handling environmental contamination resulting from a terrorist attack, the plaintiffs argued: "In choosing… to make material misrepresentations, and to supply and endorse unsafe cleaning instructions, [the EPA] knowingly created a health risk to the public that was foreseeable and that was independent of, and in addition to, the risk created by the WTC Collapse itself."

Kimberly Flynn, a leader of the community advocacy group 9/11 Environmental Action, said thousands will continue to suffer indefinitely because federal and city agencies ignored and covered up the dangers of Ground Zero for three years. Even if future testing shows that most of the pollution has cleared, she said, that does not mean the threat is gone, because "people remove those contaminants the old-fashioned way: in their lungs."

While environmental activists mobilize around current health issues, they are also raising awareness of past mistakes to make sure the EPA acts responsibly in the future, especially since the White House has recently moved toward further centralizing its control over federal disaster response.

From the perspective of those who believe that the government has contributed to the injustice of the September 11 attacks, the collapse of the Twin Towers did more than symbolize the beginning of a new political era for the United States; it set a dangerous precedent of unaccountability, allowing authorities to prioritize maintaining public order over protecting public health. Flynn warned, "This absolutely must never happen again, anywhere."
 
http://newstandardnews.net/content/index.cfm/items/1448

New York Daily News

Memory lapse
By ANTHONY GARDNER and PATRICIA REILLY
Monday, January 2nd, 2006

Congress and U.S. taxpayers gave the Lower Manhattan Development Corp. $2.78 billion to redevelop the World Trade Center site, entrusting them with the duty of building a magnificent memorial to the victims of Sept. 11, 2001. Just months before construction of the memorial is slated to begin, the LMDC is offering the American public a bargain basement version of Michael Arad’s “Reflecting Absence.”

The LMDC’s latest iteration of Arad’s design is one that is 31% smaller than the original, and the central waterfalls - the most powerful design feature - will only operate nine months out of the year. LMDC continues to shrink the memorial despite the fact the original design was too small to accommodate the estimated millions who will make a pilgrimage to the site. The memorial is being built with only one way in and one way out, putting the safety and security of future visitors in peril.

It is insulting that with all of the financial resources at its disposal the LMDC would try to foist an ever-shrinking memorial on the American people and then ask them to pay for it.

The fact that LMDC failed to consider the extra costs involved with heating the memorial’s massive waterfalls so they may flow in the winter months reflects its gross mismanagement of the redevelopment. As reported in the Daily News, LMDC has misspent millions in tax dollars on projects completely unrelated to Sept. 11, such as giving $10 million to SoHo’s Drawing Center and funding the pet projects of wealthy elites who serve on the LMDC board as they continue to shrink the memorial and refuse to pay heating bills.

Take Back the Memorial, an alliance of major Sept. 11 family groups, began at a time when LMDC’s lack of focus nearly led to the placement of the International Freedom Center on sacred ground. Now, to the detriment of future visitors to the memorial, it appears that money has followed LMDC’s misplaced priorities as evidenced by the allocation of $50 million to an unrelated cultural facility. Millions have also been spent on the Snohetta building design and we still don’t know what it will contain, if it is even built at all.

We would like to be able to say that the WTC Memorial Foundation should take over, but some changes need to be made first. The foundation has said that the memorial is the priority, but actions speak louder than words. Gov. Pataki and Mayor Bloomberg, both members of the foundation’s board, have yet to make a personal donation to the memorial.

It seems evident that the cultural facilities, not the memorial, are the true priority of some individuals who have been charged with building the memorial. The majority of Sept. 11 families are withholding donations until America gets a memorial design it deserves, one that preserves our national heritage, provides for the safety of visitors and honors the dead by telling their story without distraction.

We want a memorial that isn’t crammed into a basement space, hidden from the light of day. We want public access to the physical remains of the twin tower footprints at bedrock.

The WTC Memorial Foundation must focus its attention on the Sept. 11 memorial. Board members whose priority is not the memorial must be replaced. As long as their focus remains on extraneous cultural matters they will continue to have difficulty raising funds.

LMDC, which must get its priorities straight, would benefit from new leadership. If changes aren’t made fast in both the LMDC and the WTC Memorial Foundation, they will not only fail to honor those who died at that site on Sept. 11, 2001, but they will continue to fail us all.

Gardner and Reilly, who lost family members in the World Trade Center attack, are co-organizers of the Take Back the Memorial campaign.

http://www.takebackthememorial.com/

At 9/11 Site, No Guidelines? No Problem. Design Away.
 
By DAVID W. DUNLAP
Published: December 29, 2005

HOW many commercial buildings will be designed at the World Trade Center site before the official World Trade Center Commercial Design Guidelines are issued?

These guidelines, intended to give three-dimensional form to Daniel Libeskind's master plan, have been circulating in draft form for more than two years.

In that time, the Freedom Tower has been designed and redesigned, partly following the draft guidelines and partly ignoring them. The transportation hub has been designed in a form quite unlike that contemplated in the 2003 draft. Ditto, the memorial. Ditto, the cultural building.

Now, the architect Norman Foster - whose stock in trade is eye-popping individuality and who once promoted his own soaring vision for a new World Trade Center - has been chosen by Larry A. Silverstein to design the second largest office tower on the site, 200 Greenwich Street, a 65-story, 2.4 million-square-foot building.

And there are still no guidelines.

"Without design guidelines specifying building heights, setbacks from the property line, curbing and paving materials - along with myriad other details - Libeskind's site plan is but a poetic invocation to do the right thing," said Fredric M. Bell, the executive director of the New York chapter of the American Institute of Architects.

"The unconscionable absence of design guidelines indicates a breakdown of law," Mr. Bell added, "a literal lawlessness that brings forward a free-for-all of design indulgence where the fastest draw guns down the need for each part to relate to the whole."

There will be guidelines soon, said Stefan Pryor, the president of the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, which is working on them with Silverstein Properties, New York City and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. He said some delay involved reconciling the guidelines with the redesign of the Freedom Tower and the cultural building.

"Speculation and protestation notwithstanding, the design guidelines will be enacted," Mr. Pryor said. "They are required by regulatory documents. They will be implemented. And they will be followed." He said Lord Foster's 200 Greenwich Street project "will be reviewed in accordance" with the guidelines.

Mr. Libeskind said the rules were flexible and that Lord Foster "has worked within guidelines before."

A key premise of Mr. Libeskind's plan is that office towers will ring the memorial like a "three-dimensional spiral," descending in height from the Freedom Tower, or Tower 1, to the southernmost building off Liberty Street, Tower 5. (In this array, 200 Greenwich Street is Tower 2.)

Originally, Mr. Libeskind wanted every rooftop to slope toward the memorial. In the October 2003 draft of the guidelines, he even proposed a formula with precise ratios to ensure "increasingly canted profiles."

By February 2004, that exacting formula had been replaced with this injunction: "Each roof should inflect toward the memorial and the slopes should increase beginning with Tower 5's roof as the shallowest and Tower 1's as the greatest."

A November 2004 development agreement softened the idea further. "Each tower top should acknowledge the memorial in a meaningful and appropriate way," the revision stated. "For example, each roof could inflect toward the memorial and the slopes could decrease, beginning with Tower 1's roof as the greatest slope." Since then, the Freedom Tower has lost its sloping roof altogether.

At a news conference concerning 200 Greenwich Street on Dec. 15, Mr. Silverstein was asked whether the building would follow the design guidelines. He replied that it would follow the master site plan; a different document that lays out building locations and footprints. And he added, "Rooftops are not part of a master site plan."

Lord Foster was then asked what he thought of Mr. Libeskind's whole spiral and sloping-roof idea.

He answered indirectly. "A master plan in the end is a combination of public space, of defining streets, an element of landscaping, a mixture of uses," Lord Foster said. "And really, the essence of New York, more than any city I know - its dynamic - is the ability to respond to change. And that is the only constant. And so, over time, we're seeing those changes on this site. We're seeing it in the many different proposals which have come together for the site. So it's impossible to speculate into the future."

THESE remarks do not sound exactly like ironclad commitments to follow the current guidelines.

But the director of trade center projects for Silverstein Properties, Janno Lieber, said Mr. Silverstein embraces controls on the site, including "sustainable design" rules to limit construction noise and pollution, reduce energy and water use, improve air quality, increase daylight and recycle materials.

He said Silverstein Properties had an interest in ensuring that public areas and retail spaces were built to high standards. Though there are some details to be worked out on the design guidelines, Mr. Lieber said, "It's done, from our standpoint, and we're prepared to live with it."

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/29/nyregion/29blocks.html