/m2041
An empty black cube and two towers in the middle of a structure with arched windows. What does that evoke?
http://911memorials.org/?p=348

City Wins in Ground Zero Case
By Jarrett Murphy

Afederal judge on Thursday dismissed a lawsuit charging that the city's Office of Emergency Management helped cause the collapse of Seven World Trade Center on 9-11 by storing diesel fuel for its emergency generators in the 47-story building.
The Port Authority and developer Larry Silverstein are still on the hook in the suit, which was filed by insurers for Con Edison, which had a substation under WTC7 that was severely damaged.

The city Law Department hailed the ruling, which it says is the last property damage claim against the city related to 9-11. A statement from the department says the move by District Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein "allows New York City to better plan for events like September 11th without being subject to liability based on hindsight."

WTC7 was the last building to fall on 9-11. No one was killed there. Compared to the twin towers it was a relative nobody among New York skyscrapers, but it has enjoyed posthumous notoriety because of the mystery of why exactly it fell. Thanks to the neat and sudden collapse of the building, WTC7 is central to alternative theories about what happened on 9-11—and particularly to the notion that the buildings in lower Manhattan were brought down by planned demolitions.

Mainstream inquiries also find puzzlement on WTC 7. The national investigation of Ground Zero building collapses has yet to issue its final report on building seven. An earlier study by the Federal Emergency Management Agency punted on trying to explain the collapse definitively. Not struck by planes, WTC7 appears to have collapsed solely because of fire—apparently a first for a steel-framed skyscraper. The diesel fuel was the most likely culprit, even though FEMA said this "best hypothesis has only a low probability of occurrence."

The city's OEM command center used a 6,000-gallon diesel tank; this was one of several in the building. Hellestein's ruling doesn't delve into whether the diesel fuel caused the collapse, or if it was a particularly bright idea to have it there, but finds that the city is immune under a state law, the New York Defense Emergency Act:
Although there may be some dispute in the record as to the details of how the OEM and generator system were designed and built in their particulars, the undisputed facts are clear: the Mayor decided that the City needed an OEM and command center to facilitate civil defense functions, and City officials, pursuant to that decision, engaged in a series of good faith negotiations and contracts with property holders, architects, engineers and outside consultants to design an effective and self-sufficient command center. Further, there is no allegation that the City acted in bad faith in carrying out its activities related to civil defense.
The Port Authority argued it should be cut out of the suit, partly on the grounds that the decision by FDNY to stop fighting the fire in WTC7 was the reason it collapsed, not the diesel tanks. But while he removed the Port from part of the suit, Hellerstein refused to grant the request in full, saying that putting blame on FDNY or anyone else "is a determination that can emerge only after a full factual record has been developed." Citigroup, whose subsidiary Salomon Brothers had an office and a diesel tank at WTC7, is also still on the hook.
Silverstein is rebuilding WTC7. He just signed his second tenant. So far, a mere 100,000 of the 1.7 million square feet in the new building is spoken for.

The Con Ed insurance suit is far from the only case concerning WTC7 on the docket. Federal courts are still trolling through a bunch of cases concerning Silverstein, his insurance company, the airlines, and others who blame or are blamed for the myriad pains inflicted when Mohammed Atta and company struck their targets.

http://www.villagevoice.com/blogs/powerplays/archives/002322.php

4.65 billion reasons why I should rebuild, Silverstein says
 
W.T.C. developer Larry Silverstein said during an interview at 7 World Trade Center that the mayor is more interested in building apartments in Lower Manhattan than rebuilding offices.

By Josh Rogers

Larry Silverstein sits confidently in his empty office tower with views of the hole in the ground at the World Trade Center site as well as the two large buildings still damaged almost 4 1/2 years after the Sept. 11 attack. The mayor and the Port Authority, two of the W.T.C. power brokers, are not convinced that Silverstein is the man to develop all of the W.T.C.

But the building’s unclean windows also look out at the Hudson River and Downtown’s landmarks including the Woolworth and Municipal Buildings. Silverstein says he’s optimistic because the city and Port will realize that they won’t be able to redevelop the site unless they can find someone else who can get $4.65 billion in insurance money.

“We are the only ones with access to the money,” Silverstein, 74, said last Thursday in an exclusive interview with Downtown Express editors and reporters at 7 W.T.C. “Without the money you can’t build anything.”

Last month, Gov. George Pataki announced that he was inclined to issue Silverstein $1.67 billion of the remaining tax-free Liberty Bonds the state controls, but the mayor delayed a vote on the city’s $1.67 billion in remaining bonds, which were part of the federal government’s post-9/11 relief package for New York.

Silverstein does not need the city-controlled bonds for now and he said the vote delay will not set the redevelopment back. “We certainly do have some time,” he said. “There’s no question.”

  
A protective “bathtub” wall will have to be built near Church St. in this section of the World Trade Center site, where the permanent train station and Towers 3 and 4 are planned to be built.
  
The Bloomberg administration is negotiating conditions under which they would issue the bonds to Silverstein and is looking for assurances that he will meet design and construction timetables and the ability to “crawl back” the bonds if the developer misses a deadline.
Silverstein has enough money to begin building the 1,776-foot Freedom Tower at Vesey and West Sts. this April and Tower 2 at Church and Vesey Sts. next year, when the Port Authority is expected to have the site ready. Tower 2 has larger floor plates and he expects to fill the building with a few financial or communication firms in search of large trading floors or studio space. The Freedom Tower is likely to have a large number of tenants in need of smaller spaces and Silverstein expects both buildings to take at least a year to fill after they open in 2011.

He said Tower 2 is a better location because it will be closer to the W.T.C. PATH-subway station, but since it will take the Port Authority about a year to construct a protective bathtub there, he wants to begin building where he can first.

“Clearly the best place to start is where you’re closer to mass transit and Tower 2 is closest to mass transit,” he said. “However the realities being what they are, you cannot start Tower 2 until you excavate that major bathtub.”

The Port is now designing the bathtub and expects to begin building it this spring. Port officials have said the design could not begin until the plan was done for the train station, and places were found for the extensive amount of underground infrastructure and truck ramps needed at the site. The New York-New Jersey authority expects to have sites 3 and 4 ready for construction by the middle of 2008 although officials, say there is a chance that could be speeded up by six months.

Anthony Coscia, the Port Authority’s chairperson, told The New York Times last month that he has spoken to Silverstein about relinquishing control over much of the W.T.C. site in exchange for lowering Silverstein’s $120-million annual rent to cover just the Tower 1 and 2 sites.

Silverstein, who signed a 99-year lease with the agency for the Trade Center complex several weeks before the attack, denied anyone at the Port had raised the issue of exchanging control for a reduced rent. He refused to say last week whether or not the Port was trying to get back control of Towers 3, 4 or 5. Steve Coleman, a spokesperson for Coscia, said he had no reason to dispute his chairperson’s statement.

Pataki said Silverstein and the Port had 90 days to work out their remaining disagreements and Coleman said he thinks there will be an agreement in March.

“We’re following the governor’s timetable and we expect to have a resolution at the end of the 90 days,” Coleman said.

The Port is also arguing with the city over the retail layout at the W.T.C. The authority favors keeping Cortlandt St. closed off to create larger spaces for stores whereas the city wants to open the street to add liveliness and provide better views and access to the W.T.C. memorial. Silverstein said he would be happy with whichever idea prevails.

Mayor Mike Bloomberg told Downtown Express last month that market demand should dictate what gets built at the site and he has also spoken about considering hotels or housing there. The Liberty Bonds could be used for a hotel or retail space in addition to offices.

Silverstein said the site can’t be built entirely unless he gets all of the insurance money, which requires him to rebuild 10 million square feet of office space there. “If you stop and ponder the significance of that, you come to the conclusion that 100 percent of the office space needs to be built out,” he said.

A spokesperson for the mayor did not respond to a request for comment.

Silverstein said the mayor is “more of a supporter of residential down here than anything else.”

Bloomberg and others have questioned the demand for 10 million square feet of office space given Silverstein has only found two tenants for the 1.7 million square feet of office space at 7 W.T.C., which is expected to open in April

Silverstein said one of the reasons he has not found more tenants yet is public skepticism about the rebuilding pace.

“When you have major uncertainties, and you have major controversies it is difficult for people to relate to what’s really happening,” he said. “The constant question is, ‘is it really going to happen?’”

It will, Silverstein says, because he expects agreements with the mayor and the Port Authority. “I think at the end of the day we’ll get this resolved together.”

http://www.downtownexpress.com/de_140/465billion.html

Officials reverse stream on waterfalls

Gretchen Dykstra, WTC Memorial Foundation president, said Tuesday that the waterfalls in the memorial design by Michael Arad and Peter Walker would run during the winter. Last month the foundation said the falls would be shut during the winter

By Ronda Kaysen

Redevelopment officials devised a way to keep waterfalls cascading into the World Trade Center Memorial year round, a reversal from a previous decision that the waterfalls would be shut off during the winter months.
The fountains — a centerpiece of the memorial — will extend nearly 200 feet along each side of two square voids and cascade nearly 30 feet to reflecting pools below where the names of the victims of the 1993 and Sept. 11 attacks are listed. A mock memorial designed in Ontario, Canada concluded that a mid-winter trip to the memorial would leave visitors sodden with icy water and make for an unpleasant experience. Last month, the World Trade Center Memorial Foundation, which will own and operate the memorial, decided to shut the fountains down in the winter, a development first reported at DowntownExpress.com.
After tinkering with the engineering, the foundation decided the waterfalls could work in winter after all, foundation president Gretchen Dykstra told Downtown Express Tuesday.
“This just shows how complicated this project is,” Dykstra said, standing inside the World Financial Center lobby Tuesday evening. “Every question has a gazillion engineering aspects to it.”
Winterizing the waterfalls, which involves incorporating heating mechanisms into the design, will cost the foundation an additional $300,000 to build and an extra $750,000 a year to operate because of energy costs.
The memorial, Reflecting Absence, is estimated to cost $330 million, and the underground memorial museum will cost $160 million. Construction will begin this spring.
“We’ll work to make sure that the visitor experience is as comfortable as possible no matter what time of year,” said foundation spokesperson Lynn Rasic.
The foundation is in the midst of a $500 million fundraising campaign to build the memorial. On Tuesday, Governor George Pataki earmarked an additional $80 million of his capital budget for the Snohetta building, ensuring the likelihood that the cultural facility, in some incarnation, will be built.
The Snohetta building, designed by the Norwegian architectural firm of the same name, was intended to house the International Freedom Center and the Drawing Center, two museums planned for the site. But after sustaining fierce criticism from some 9/11 family members critical of a cultural center near the memorial, the Drawing Center bowed out of the development and Pataki removed the I.F.C.
Dykstra has insisted Snohetta is too expensive to build. Some in the cultural community breathed a collective sigh of relief to see the project — which had received lavish praise from the arts community — funded with money that did not need to be privately raised.
“I’m thrilled to hear this news. I’m delighted that they could all agree on something and reach this kind of commitment,” said Drawing Center president George Negroponte in a telephone interview Wednesday. The Drawing Center is considering building a permanent museum in the South Street Seaport. “It leaves some profound options open for people to agree upon when the time is right, when all of the dust settles and the temperature of this is lowered to some degree.”
“The faster we can get the funds committed for the memorial and the museum the better,” said Community Board 1 chairperson Julie Menin, who was appointed to the Memorial Foundation board Tuesday. Cantor Fitzgerald chairperson and C.E.O. Howard Lutnick and Savita Bhan Wakhlu, managing director of Jagriti Communications, were also appointed to the board Tuesday. Former Disney C.E.O. Michael Eisner resigned from the board because of time constraints, Rasic said.
With both museums gone from the site, the building’s content is decidedly open for discussion. The building will be smaller than originally conceived and moved further away from the North Tower footprint. Aside from that, the details are vague. Redevelopment officials insist the programming will complement the memorial and the memorial museum.
“We know now that it [Snohetta] must be related to 9/11 and it will be related to 9/11, but it will try to get some inspiration, it will not just be a place of sadness,” foundation chairperson John Whitehead said at a press conference Tuesday. “We must find the positive aspect to 9/11.”
In the past, Dykstra has indicated a desire to see the building used for a visitors’ center and a bathroom facility. A gift shop will also be housed in the building, Whitehead said.
Many families that opposed the I.F.C. and the Drawing Center had hoped to see the Snohetta building turned into an additional museum of 9/11. A smaller Snohetta, moved further from the memorial, indicates they might not be getting what they hoped for. “It was not handed over to the families as they may have wished,” said Negroponte of the Drawing Center. “A decision has been made that flies in the face of what the families wanted.”
Indeed, the recent memorial decisions did not bode well with those family members. The group plans to hold a press conference on Thursday morning after the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation’s board meeting. “I don’t believe it’s their intention to bury 9/11, but that is essentially what has happened,” said Charles Wolf, whose wife died in the attacks. “Everything is going to be below ground. It’s as if they’re trying to hide it.”
Wolf learned about the $80 million Snohetta allocation from the Associated Press and about reinstating the waterfalls from Downtown Express. “They’ve already reached their conclusions and they haven’t even considered our thoughts on the matter… They’re inviting another fight.”
Content decisions for Snohetta have yet to be made public, said redevelopment officials, and the families will eventually have the opportunity to see the designs. “As we prepare for the memorial groundbreaking, the L.M.D.C. will continue to consult with and inform all constituencies regarding the design process,” said L.M.D.C. spokesperson John Gallagher in a statement to Downtown Express.
Despite Wolf’s frustration with the redevelopment process, he was one of the first people to participate in a new foundation project, Story Builder. His account of 9/11 is now part of a permanent digital archive on the foundation’s Web site, www.buildthememorial.org. It will eventually be incorporated into the Memorial Museum. He participated to help move the fundraising effort along, he said. “We need to encourage fundraising and press our points as the fundraising continues. If we don’t get some momentum going, it’s not going to happen.”

http://www.downtownexpress.com/de_140/officialsreverse.html

9/11 memorial plans scrapped

Plans to entomb the unidentified remains of victims of the 9/11 attacks at the heart of the World Trade Center memorial have been ditched, it was reported today.

Instead, thousands of body parts will be kept in a climate-controlled room about 35 feet east of the special chamber where relatives will be able to mourn their loved ones, The New York Times said.

The change in plan means the remains will be easily removable for DNA testing, while family members will be able to see into the room where the containers are kept.

The 30-foot-square stone vessel in which the remains were to have been housed, which will stand 9 feet high in the centre of the change, will be purely symbolic.

Michael Arad, one of the memorial’s architects, told the newspaper the role of the vessel and surrounding rooms had evolved.

“We’re not burying the remains,” he said.

“They have to be kept for future identification. We’re essentially keeping them in medically controlled conditions.”

He added that the medical examiner had told him “many family members wanted to see where the remains were, how they were being stored”.

He said of the monolithic vessel itself: “It provides a touchstone, a centre, something that people can gather around.”
http://breakingnews.iol.ie/news/story.asp?j=168952154&p=y6895z86x

DON'T GIVE ME 'LIBERTY'

By V.A. MUSETTO

LIBERTY STREET: ALIVE AT GROUND ZERO
9/11 revisited.
Running time: 118 minutes. Not rated (disturbing images). At the Two Boots Pioneer Theater, Avenue A and Third Street.

FILE Peter Josyph's 9/11 doc "Liberty Street: Alive at Ground Zero" under Too Much of a Good Thing.

The filmmaker chronicles the terrorist attack from that terrible day to the present, focusing on residents of 114 Liberty St., which used to sit in the shadow of the World Trade Center.

It was left standing in the assault, but its upscale residents had to stay elsewhere for a year and a half because of heavy damage and contamination.

Rescue workers, journalists and other eyewitnesses get their say, too.

There are tender moments, like an interview with Ike, a shoeshine man near Ground Zero who survived the Holocaust and the terrorist attack.

And there are beautifully composed video images of the city.

But Josyph allows people to blab on far too long, then throws everything they say at viewers, expecting them to put the words into some kind of context.

A bit of editing — like chopping an hour off the running time — would be a big help.

http://www.nypost.com/movies/61454.htm

YEAR-ROUND FOUNTAINS AT WTC
 
January 12, 2006 -- Massive fountains marking the perimeter of the Twin Towers at the World Trade Center Memorial will flow year-round, The Post has learned.
The memorial's fundraising board, with Gov. Pataki's encouragement, decided this week to keep the fountains running through the winter, despite earlier concerns about added operating costs in cold weather.

"The foundation believes it's important that visitors be able to experience the waterfalls at any time of year," said spokeswoman Lynn Rasic.

A decision to include heaters to keep the water flowing was made during the foundation's board meeting Tuesday, she said.

Designing the fountains to work in winter will add about $300,000 to the cost of the project. The total cost for the memorial and its museum is about $500 million.

 Tom Topousis

http://www.nypost.com/news/regionalnews/60237.htm

Discord Over 9/11 Memorial's Symbolism

By DAVID W. DUNLAP

THE heart of the World Trade Center memorial has been transplanted.

Construction documents released last week by the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation made it clear that thousands of unidentified remains of 9/11 victims would not be entombed in the monolith planned as the memorial's bedrock-level centerpiece.

Two years ago - almost to the day - when the memorial design by Michael Arad and Peter Walker was unveiled, the public was told otherwise. "At bedrock of the north tower's footprint," said Vartan Gregorian, on behalf of the jury that chose the design, "loved ones will be able to mourn privately, in a chamber with a large stone vessel containing unidentified remains of victims that will rest at the base of the void."

In the current plan, body parts are to be kept in a climate-controlled room about 35 feet east of the vessel, under the supervision of the city's chief medical examiner. They will be easily removable from there for further examination as DNA identification techniques improve. An adjoining vestibule, open only to victims' relatives, will offer a view into the room where containers of body parts are stored.

The vessel, 30 feet square and 9 feet high in the center of the main chamber, will be symbolic.

"I just don't see the point," said Diane Horning, the president of W.T.C. Families for Proper Burial, speaking for herself. "Our loved ones aren't symbolically dead. But everything that's been given to us is symbolic."

Edie Lutnick, the executive director of the Cantor Fitzgerald Relief Fund, asked: "What is the purpose? The ashen remains are in Fresh Kills in a garbage dump. Now, on the site itself, it's going to be an empty box." She said she first learned about the vessel's new role at a meeting three months ago on other issues.

Dr. Gregorian, the president of the Carnegie Corporation of New York and a member of the memorial foundation board, said he learned about it from a Jan. 3 article in The New York Times.Without commenting on the latest revision, he urged a "major public presentation" of how the original design has changed in the last two years as the result of budgeting, engineering and security concerns. There ought to be regular updates, Dr. Gregorian said, "in order to avert surprises, rumors or speculation."

Yesterday, Mr. Arad said the role of the vessel and surrounding rooms had evolved, particularly after he visited the refrigerated trailers where the medical examiner currently stores the body parts in the hope that they can eventually be matched with individuals.

"We're not burying the remains," Mr. Arad said. "They have to be kept for future identification. We're essentially keeping them in medically controlled conditions."

He also said he learned from the medical examiner that "many family members wanted to see where the remains were, how they were being stored."

Asked, then, what was the purpose of the monolith itself, Mr. Arad said, "It provides a touchstone, a center, something that people can gather around."

"I can imagine people leaving flowers or candles at the base of this," he added. "People may tape pictures to it. We don't know how they will interact."

Anne Papageorge, a senior vice president of the development corporation, said, "There are many memorials or vessels that don't contain actual remains that still serve a symbolic focal purpose."

But Ms. Lutnick said she did not understand why the vessel could not have drawers on one side, if that were necessary for retrieval, and solid stone on the other sides, with the entire tomb enclosed in a see-through material if it must be climate-controlled. "It seems to me they're not trying very hard," she said.

Prof. James E. Young of the University of Massachusetts, an expert on memorials who served on the memorial jury, said, "Perhaps a small vessel with unidentified remains could be entombed in the large 'symbolic' vessel, coming to represent the rest of the remains entombed behind the wall nearby."

(Though it has been suggested that some material from the Fresh Kills landfill on Staten Island could be deposited in the vessel, Ms. Horning said such a token amount "would preclude proper burial of all the remains.")

SPEAKING of the monolith-as-tomb, Professor Young said in an e-mail message: "I always cautioned against making this feature too central to the role of the memorial, only because the signficance of remains varies widely among different religious traditions.

"I know that in some Christian communities, a vessel with remains (an urn with ashes, for example) occupies a pretty prominent place in memorializing the dead. In contrast, orthodox Jewish tradition proscribes certain priestly sects from treading in cemeteries at all, where human remains are present.

"The way forward, therefore, will probably be to find a balance or compromise between the literal and symbolic roles of the mortuary vessel."

He did not say it would be easy.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/12/nyregion/12blocks.html

'World Trade Center Cough' a growing concern

There is more evidence that the number of people sick with 9/11 related illnesses is growing dramatically.

So much so - there's a name for it -- "the World Trade Center cough". And there is a waiting list for victims seeking medical help.

...

It is a warning sign of what's to come: more and more people seeking help for deteriorating lung problems and chronic coughs linked to their work at ground zero.

The numbers appear to be growing and the long term diagnosis is not good.

Dr. Robin Herbert: "There is a certain core group of people who have become very ill as result of their World Trade Center exposure and aren't getting any better."

That core group, according to the co-director of Mt. Sinai's World Trade Center Medical Monitoring Program, is estimated to be in the hundreds and growing.

Dr. Herbert, Mt. Sinai Hospital: "We have a three to four month waiting period for new patients to come into our treatment program because the demand is so tremendous."

John Graham: "My lungs are burnt from the concrete dust."

John Graham is not getting any better.

John: "I have a severe breathing problem ... the tests are clear I had no breathing problem before 9/11."

As a carpenter, he helped in the clean-up at ground zero for months breathing in the toxic mix of fumes he says destroyed his lungs and made it impossible for him to work.

His fear now is a battery of powerful drugs will eventually fail to keep him alive.

John: "Every breath I take hurts that much more it's exhausting."

Marie Pellegrino: "His health went downhill starting with that cough, and that cough started at ground zero."

Chris Pellegrino worked for months as a cable installer at ground zero, months of breathing in poisonous smoke and dust. He developed "the World Trade Center cough," his lungs disintegrated, he lost his job. When he died at age 42, he looked nearly as old as his mother.

...

http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/story?section=...tigators&id=3802673

Port Authority K-9 Police Officer John Cortazzo is in desperate need
of A Negative and O Negative Blood and Blood Platelets. Officer.
Cortazzo was a 1st responder to the WTC attack and spent months
working at the recovery site searching for fallen comrades. Anyone
that can help please contact the Blood Bank at Hackensack University
Medical Center. (http://www.humed.com/)

Thanks for your help!

Pataki Wants Taxpayer Funding of Ground Zero Building
by Arun Venugopal

— Governor Pataki says he wants taxpayers to fund a cultural building at Ground Zero. WNYC's Arun Venugopal reports.

The governor has proposed spending $80 million for the Snohetta building, which was originally meant to house the Freedom Center and Drawing Center. But will now be used as a visitors center and 9-11 related exhibition space.

This is the first time state funds will be used at Ground Zero. However, officials with the World Trade Center Memorial Foundation insist their $500 million fundraising campaign will meet its goal, regardless of state support. So far, they have raised over a hundred million dollars from private sources. They also intend to start raising funds abroad, from nations and individuals who feel connected to the events of September 11.

http://www.wnyc.org/news/articles/55904

MANHATTAN: FINANCING FOR GROUND ZERO CENTER New York State will contribute $80 million to build a visitors' center at ground zero, designed by the firm Snohetta, Gov. George E. Pataki said yesterday. Also yesterday, the World Trade Center Memorial Foundation added new board members: Howard W. Lutnick, chairman and chief executive of Cantor Fitzgerald; Julie Menin, chairwoman of Community Board 1; and Savita Bhan Wakhlu, managing director of Jagriti Communications. Michael D. Eisner, former chief executive of the Walt Disney Company, resigned from the board, citing unexpected commitments. DAVID W. DUNLAP (NYT)

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/11/nyregion/11mbrfs.html

Unsung Heroes Helping Heroes, INC. join with Suffolk County Legislator - William J. Lindsey in presenting a conference dedicated toward Identifying issues and developing solutions to problems still faced by the Unsung Heroes of the 9-11-01 attacks.
 
Reistration is FREE but individuals must be registered - CALL: The Long Island Occupational and Environmental Health Center at #631-642-9100 ext. 15
 
Conference Date - January 28th, 2006
 
Place of Conference- Suffolk Community College - Brentwood
                                   Campus
Conference begins - 8:30am - approx. 2pm
 
Further questions can be directed to:
Jonathan Sferazo #631-423-0277
Marvin Bethea #718-544-6356
John Feal #631-724-3320

Sierra Club Launches New TV Series with Ground Zero
The program, "9/11 Forgotten Heroes," shows the experience of four Ground Zero workers who have suffered severe health effects from the World Trade Center pollution, and will be shown on Link TV (airing on DIRECTV channel 375 and Dish Network channel 9410).

This is the first nationally televised documentary to focus exclusively on the pollution from Ground Zero and the unmet health needs of the heroes who worked there. Emergency medical crews, firefighters and construction workers answered the call to Ground Zero, assured that the air was safe. Now, years later, they still suffer health problems and have to fight the government for health benefits. "9/11 Forgotten Heroes" follows four of these first responders – construction worker John Feal, ironworker Jonathan Sferazo, medic Major Mike McCormack and paramedic Marvin Bethea – as they travel from NYC to Washington, D.C., seeking justice, in the form of the Walsh Amendment, which would restore $125 million dollars in aid.

The funding finally was restored through the defense appropriation bill in December of 2005, but although this funding will help cover medical screening and treatment, it will only meet a fraction of the real need.

Also, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton and Congressman Jerrold Nadler have called on the U.S. General Accounting Office to investigate EPA's failure to carry out proper testing and cleanup of 9/11 pollution and its effects on New York families.


http://www.homelandresponse.org/500/Breaki.../12974/BreakingNews

Thinking Small: Memorialize Life At Ground Zero

By Roberta Brandes Gratz

Author Roberta Brandes Gratz argues that what’s needed is a reconstruction plan that inspires

Another anniversary of 9/11 has come and gone. Only this time it was nearly submerged in the wreckage of New Orleans. The overseers of a 300-year-old Southern city and the 16-acre Ground Zero site in Manhattan now share a common new purpose: Undertaking expensive, symbolic, and closely watched reconstructions that inspire America and respond to the challenges of this century in a new way.

Much of the responsibility for achieving these goals is falling to civic planners, a group of professionals suddenly thrust into the national spotlight. For better or worse it’s planners in New York, faced with reconstructing Ground Zero, who are taking the first crack at an incredibly important task.

If any city should know how to build to meet the needs of people, respond to an ever changing and complex economy, and inspire the world about what is possible, New York should. Every urban lesson about how to construct a durable, efficient, and functioning modern civilization is here, in plain view. The prescription for future development at Ground Zero should draw on the proven lessons of what has evolved over time in the lower Manhattan neighborhoods that border the site.

So what does that look like?

It’s The Street, Stupid
First, just as officials have planned, we ought to leave the sacred footprints of the Twin Towers as memorials honoring a horrific attack on a city and a nation that bent, but did not break. But equally appropriate is to rebuild the functional and economically productive street grid that once existed in lower Manhattan before it was wiped out in the 1960s to make way for the now-fallen towers.

Great streets evolve on interesting grids. Outside of the fenced in Ground Zero site, the rest of lower Manhattan still has narrow, winding streets alive with human activity. For Ground Zero to truly function as a place fit for all the human-scale activities of this century, it needs to reconnect to those lively streets. Ground Zero’s new streets need to be interesting enough to attract crowds, and they need to be safe and comforting too, with benches and intimate public spaces where people can mingle and meet.

Productive street life also makes all the other facets of urban design and construction flow. Ground Zero’s planners should see the need for a mixture of buildings of different heights, widths, and scale. No superblocks should emerge. Instead, different kinds of buildings need to be encouraged — tall and thin, short and fat, residential and commercial, institutional and educational, museums and theaters. They should be constructed on a timetable that is dictated by market demand, not a gargantuan plan. Too much built at one time without market demand acts as a giant sump, draining economic and social energy from elsewhere. That, too, occurred with the original World Trade Center.

Another idea that is crucial to Ground Zero’s ability to inspire and perform well is to include lots of new housing. Right now, residences are prohibited. This policy needs to be reversed. In fact there is more demand for housing at the Ground Zero site and in nearby neighborhoods than for office space. There is precedence for this idea. In neighboring landmark districts, Tribecca and SoHo, new modestly scaled contemporary buildings are being developed alongside historic buildings that bring a kind of urban coziness to both neighborhoods, among the trendiest and most desirable in New York.

No Mall! No Mall!
Moving on: The Ground Zero master plan calls for 1 million square feet of retail space in a giant mall that tries hard not to look like a mall. The developers are reported to be the same ones who put a mall in Time Warner’s new building uptown, named it the Shops at Columbus Circle, and insist it is not what it is: a mall. The same old national chains are there. The space is totally developer controlled. This is an important distinction. Most people don't understand that what makes a mall is that it is all owned, leased, and controlled by one owner. It’s not an authentic street that is truly public, has multiple property owners and individual tenants, whether those tenants are chains or locally-owned.

The proposed Ground Zero mall is a terrible idea and should be taken off the table. New York City isn’t a suburb and doesn’t want to be a suburb. It’s a city of individual shops and stores, chains and locally owned businesses side by side, located on busy streets. This pattern of retail development created the intensely vibrant streets of New York. It will for Ground Zero as well.

Lower Manhattan, which the Twin Towers once shaded, is a different place today than it was when the World Trade Center was built more than three decades ago. Authentic, market-driven urbanism is re-emerging gradually. Scores of early 20th century office towers have been converted into housing and new office space. Tribecca and the lower West Side waterfront boast the highest residential values in the city. Small-scale and high-rise buildings are scattered throughout.
 


Battery Park City, which borders the west side of Ground Zero, is almost fully developed after four decades. Above the street, and slipped into spaces all around Ground Zero, are converted lofts, live-work sites, small offices, and art-based businesses – the useful mix that defines a thriving urban neighborhood that has taken shape right alongside the fancy brokerages and bond sellers and banks that we all associate with the financial center internationally recognized as Wall Street.

All the critical ingredients of a successful redevelopment, in short, are in place at Ground Zero, including public transportation. More mass transit lines connect to each other on this site than almost any other place in New York City. Every subway line in the city has an on-site or nearby stop. Regional ferry and rail, and connections from Grand Central, Penn Station, and Atlantic Terminal tie the tri-state Connecticut, New Jersey, and New York region together like no other in the United States.

No Fortresses Please
All of this activity, which celebrates life and honors a tragic event, has eluded the Ground Zero planners. The current design for Ground Zero calls for buildings that are forbidding, intimidating, and harsh. The thick, fortress-like structures respond to the very acts of depravity that leveled the World Trade Center four years ago. For example, the newest design for the Freedom Tower, the centerpiece of the development, calls for a windowless base of steel and concrete rising 200 feet up from the street. That will surely enable the building to survive a freakish truck bomb attack. But you have to wonder how such a cold and forbidding shoulder turned to the city will attract enough renters or visitors.

The Freedom Tower has the potential to be the most significant new building of this century. It should not be a fort in an urban desert awaiting attack. It should be a welcoming center of human activity, a place of beauty and energy, an inspiring symbol of big-hearted New York and America. For that matter, the Freedom Tower and the other facets of the reconstructed Ground Zero should be a national porch, a place to gather and share and exchange and enjoy what it is to be alive. That would be a building that honors lives that were lost and truly celebrates American freedom.

Roberta Brandes Gratz, an international lecturer on urban development issues and a former reporter for the New York Post, is the author of "The Living City: Thinking Small in a Big Way," and "Cities Back from the Edge: New Life for Downtown." She lives in New York City and can be reached at LIVINGCITY@aol.com


http://www.evworld.com/view.cfm?section=article&storyid=950

Pataki proposes $80 million in NY state funds for WTC building

By AMY WESTFELDT

NEW YORK -- Gov. George Pataki on Tuesday proposed spending $80 million in state funds to put up a redesigned cultural building that once was to house two museums on the World Trade Center site.

The proposed donation to the World Trade Center Memorial Foundation is the first time state government funds would be used to help rebuild any of the 16 acres of ground zero. It is earmarked for a building that still has no final design.
 
 But the $80 million is expected to pay for nearly the entire construction of the cultural building and visitors' center planned near the trade center memorial, Pataki spokeswoman Joanna Rose said. Construction would begin next year, and the building would be ready to open along with the memorial and a museum in 2009.

Pataki said the funding will "fulfill our solemn obligation to the families of the heroes, friends, neighbors and loved ones we lost and create a unified and unforgettable visitor experience to honor their memory."

The building, less than one-third the size of its initial design, will serve as a visitors' center offering Sept. 11-related exhibits, state officials said.

Pataki is including the $80 million next week in his proposed executive budget, which requires the state Legislature's approval.

The Norwegian architecture firm Snohetta first designed the cultural building eight months ago to be 250,000 square feet and house two museums, the Drawing Center and the International Freedom Center. The Drawing Center decided last summer to look for another home, and Pataki removed the freedom museum from the building in the fall after Sept. 11 families complained that the museums would dishonor the memory of the 2001 terrorist attacks' nearly 3,000 victims and take attention from the memorial.

A final design of the building will be released in the next few weeks, state officials said.

The state money would add to the $102 million the nonprofit foundation has raised privately and $300 million pledged by the Lower Manhattan Development Corp. rebuilding agency to build the $490 million memorial and other cultural space at ground zero.

At a board meeting Tuesday, the foundation named three new members, including the CEO of the firm that lost the most victims in the attack on the World Trade Center. Howard Lutnick, of Cantor Fitzgerald, was elected along with Julie Menin, chair of Community Board 1 in lower Manhattan, and Savita Bhan Wakhlu, a business leader. Former Disney CEO Michael Eisner, saying he had too many other commitments, resigned from the board, leaving 39 members.

The Cantor Fitzgerald bond brokerage lost 658 of its 960 employees on Sept. 11, 2001, including Lutnick's brother.

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